#having an interesting time approaching drawing more like design

[time-slink]

rock lee u are the world 2 me….

[nyctocounterfeit]

Sonic Prime

Omfg I think I am done with this drawing, it was a lot of stress. I did a lot of stupid small mistakes and should of planned the sketching part a bit more. My initial plan was the have all of them in original persona with shards reflecting their shatterverse persona but it looked awkward so I instead did the complicated approach and drew them three times which took a ton of work because i also change their pose for each shatterverse otherwise it would look weird and lazy. However eventhough this work gave me a ton of headache and frustration I would say, it could be a lot worse and am happy with the final result. Did I make some mistakes yeah I’m pretty sure I did and can edit it later. I’m ok with that lol. It was hard to find references at the time, so if I made a mistake, I’ll come back to it. I just want to draw something else in the mean time. Maybe more sonic sketches or kingdom hearts or maybe a collab because I’m thinking of the sonic 2022 and Kh 20 anniversary, this year was soooo crazy.

but what about sonic prime, is it a good show? A bad show? I think you guys have your answer right here. I would say honestly this has to be the best sonic show I’ve watched. I did watched, sonic x, underground, sat am and some of boom. But I really liked the characters here, they were fun and had an interesting approach to each of their shatterverse persona. but I love the smear animation approach because not only could they get away with using less frames, it make it very dynamic, actioning and fun also a nice reference to how sonic was design based on the rubber hose era. I even bought a sonic 25 anniversary book this year and it’s a fun read. But yes, enough of the chit chat, I’m happy with this drawing at the end, I hope you guys enjoy it.

[mistydeyes]

141 boys and your oddly specific hobby

┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊

summary: Most people have hobbies like drawing or bird watching, however, yours are more unique. Regardless of your odd interests, the 141 still loves you, their quirky significant other!

pairing: 141 x gn!Reader

warnings: swearing

a/n: By popular vote, this won so please enjoy :)

┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊ ⋆ ┊ . ┊ ┊┊

Price - matchbook collecting

When you first met Price, it was when you both dipped your hands into the matchbook jar. The jar sat at the host stand of a dive bar and you both happened to go for it at the same time. Although, you two had different motives. Him, because he forgot his lighter, and you, because you wanted to add something else to your collection. He wouldn’t pass up on a pretty face who he presumed also smoked, so he invited you for a light. You didn’t have the heart to tell him that you were just a collector so you joined him outside.

What started as a quick smoke ended up being two hours of witty conversation. As your pleasantries turned into various topics and ramblings, you were glad you finished the cigar quickly, trying to emulate the mature man’s actions. He vaguely talked about his occupation, a high-ranking military man, and you talked about your non-comparable, boring civilian life. However as the late night hours slowly approached, you wrote your number on his matchbook and thanked him for the cigar and friendly chat.

On your next date, you revealed your odd hobby to Price. “I’ve been collecting them as a child. It’s like collecting snow globes from different destinations but much easier to display and transport,” you said as you both leisurely sipped your drinks. “And to think I thought you were out for a smoke, good thing I left my lighter that day, Love” he replied and gave you a subtle wink. You eventually showed him pictures of your growing collection, recounting where each one was from and showing him some of your favorites.

Soon everywhere he went, Price noticed the unique matchbooks. It started with pocketing a matchbox while he was in Amsterdam and grew slowly. Soon he would start a collection of his own, bringing them home to you with a story of where they each came from. After what seemed like 30 matchbooks in Price's collection, the 141 took notice. “Captain, you some pyromaniac or something,” Soap joked. “Just for my partner, weird collection of there’s” Price responded and no one questioned him further. Although, he still keeps the matchbook that has your number on it in his collection.

Soap - soap making

“You’re never gonna believe me, but I make soap as a side business.” Soap thought it was a joke at first, something to make him laugh when you first met. But when he entered your flat, he was shocked at how honest you were. Your walls were filled with shelves lined with every scent known to man along with hundreds of designed soaps. It smelled like a Lush store when he walked in and he marveled at your creations.

You watched him bask in the glory of the soap for a moment as you laughed heartily. "I told you so," you said as he went about sniffing each one and examining them. You organized them by scent and interrupted him as he approached the floral section. "Having fun there, Johnny?" you asked and he looked up at you as he held one of your rose-scented creations in his hand. "Can't believe this," he said and you smiled as he continued. Eventually, after he had smelt every single bar, you took him into a room where you were working on some new items for your fall collection.

"You have more!" he gasped and went to examine the bars of soap in their molds. "My Autumn collection," you said proudly, "here come smell this one." You led him to a table that housed an orange-hued soap slab with leaves delicately placed throughout the hardened bar. He held the slab in one hand and placed it up to his nose. His eyes lit up as a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin filled his nostrils. "Smells like a pie," he joked and you showed him various others.

For his return from deployment, you had a surprise. You had spent weeks perfecting this formula and finally were satisfied. As you walked to his flat, you gently tugged on the striped ribbon that tied the parcel together. When he opened the door, he noticed the box in your hands and ushered you in. He excitedly tugged the ribbon off the box and opened it. He gasped when he saw two bars in the colors of the Scottish flag lying on a pile of recycled confetti. "What's this?" he asked and you motioned for him to turn the bars over and smell them. As his calloused hands turned the soft bar over, he noticed the packaging said "The Scotsman." He smiled widely as he placed them both up to his nose, taking in the smells of rain and pine. You swear you could see him tear up when he said, "Reminds me of my own home."

After this, he insisted you mass produce these bars of soap for his friends. You sheepishly did so and when you presented it to the other 141, Gaz loudly remarked, "He's finally done it, Soap is now a bar of soap." 

Gaz - raising butterflies

He had heard about people having pets—even raising chickens but never butterflies. Your house was a sanctuary, filled with small enclosures of cocoons along with various flowers for your butterflies to suck nectar from. When he entered your house, it was like that scene where Alice first sees all the flowers in Wonderland. He felt like a child, seeing all the gorgeous wings floating around the room. He saw a delicately monarch land on a peony and approached it quietly.

"Here hold out your finger like this," you said and showed him how to stand gently and hold out his pointer finger. As he followed your actions, the butterfly gently landed on him. He looked in awe at the insect and you stealthily took a picture of him. The rest of the afternoon, you described to him what flowers butterflies like best and the lengthy process of tending to them before they reached metamorphosis.

Whenever Gaz was on deployment, he would always visit to relax in the butterfly sanctuary. He loved watching as you tended to the flowers and gently fed the butterflies sugar water. Even when he was on a mission, he would be sure to ask about some of his favorite butterflies, even going so far as to name them. "How's my girl, Cressia, doing?" he asked over FaceTime as you walked to find the Great spangled fritillary amongst the zinnias. "Here she is!" you exclaimed and pointed the camera at Cressia, a gorgeous butterfly with golden yellow wings. You could hear someone snicker in the background but Kyle didn't care as he continued to take screenshot after screenshot.

For your first anniversary, Kyle was unfortunately deployed and couldn't celebrate with you. This didn't stop him from showering you with gifts. As you sat in the conservatory, you could hear the doorbell ring. You emerged to find the postman holding two boxes for you, one smaller than the other. You took them inside as you delicately opened up the larger package. Inside, was a note describing the care for 23 painted butterflies along with rows of small cocoons. You smiled as you read the instructions and went to place the new members into their homes. After you got them settled, you opened the small box to reveal a necklace with a small butterfly charm carved from a pearl. A note inside read, "Happy anniversary, now you can carry a butterfly with you anywhere you go."

Ghost - bookbinding

When you first invited Simon over he was quick to notice your many bookshelves all lined with books of the same aesthetic. He knew some of these were Penguin clothbound Classics but was certain they hadn't bound The Hunger Games in their unique cover. As he held The Harry Potter novels and My Year of Rest and Relaxation in his hands, he silently contemplated if he had missed a few years and these were published classics. You came into the library with two glasses and laughed at his bewildered gaze. "You discovered my little hobby, Simon," you joked and offered him a glass. As he sipped on The Paper Plane cocktail, you recounted how you would spend your free time rebinding books that didn't match your aesthetic. "It took me a while but having a matching library like this one is worth it," you said and waved your arm to the rows of books, all with a unifying factor.

As you entered into a long-term relationship, it was clear Simon loved your hobby and indulged in it. Every time he visited, he insisted on bringing you the few books he owned to create Penguin Classic-like covers. From military manuals to a vintage copy of The Art of War, you quickly rebound them and presented him with his new book. He even told you that some of his colleagues had complimented your handiwork. You always blushed in response, citing your eye for design as the cause of all the madness.

Eventually, Simon gifted you with the paperback Penguin Classics. You opened the door to see him carrying a pile of books in his arms. You quickly ushered him to the library where he set them all down on your vintage leather couch. "For the person, that has everything," he said and you went to examine all of the books. He had seemingly bought out the whole collection as you marveled at each of the covers. "Each one of them has an art piece on it," he said and you began to notice the trend. You gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek as you held Wuthering Heights in your hand. He quickly snatched it out of your hands before you could even start to rip off the cover. "Keep these, I know you have a theme going on but it doesn't hurt to have some variety," he said and gave you back the book as you stared up at him.

Now whenever someone comes to visit you, they always notice the black-bound books on display. Although they do stick out, you love recounting the story of how your significant other bought you some of the most prized objects in your collection.

[marciaillust]

How long does it take for you to finish drawing?

I'm an artist (beginner) and i unconsciously set unrealistic goals for myself and need a reminder of how long it takes to complete a drawing, Thanks.

Hi! In the context you presented it in, that is a really interesting question, so I'll try to approach it thoroughly. I hope I won't make you roll your eyes too much.

Where to start, where to start... I guess the first thing I should say is that there is a difference between time I spend preforming the action of <drawing>, and the time I spent <working> on a particular piece. The first would be counted in hours, the second one - days. I'm a big believer in slowing things down, and giving things time - going through options, gathering research and references, taking breaks every 1h of sitting and drawing - and seeing things through until I achieve the goal I set at the beginning of the process.

The goals are usually different each time: "quick design", "character exploration", "analysis of an artist's linework and experimenting with the knowledge gained", "creating an aesthetically pleasing image", and so on and so forth. Of course I don't write these down like it's a school assignment, but knowing in the back of my head what I'm actually doing helps me manage my expectations. I also enjoy being conscious of why I create - when I was younger regardless of what I was doing I had the thought "AND IT MUST LOOK GOOD AND PRESENTABLE! BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL LOOK!" ...and I think that obsession is the cancer of creative process.

Since the goals for each picture are different, the time I'll spent on achieving each one will be different as well, because the "satisfactory results" lay in different places. For example, the Marcile sketchpage was created in one afternoon, and took approximately 3 hours. The goal was to play around with a brush that has no opacity forcing my lines to be more decisive. I did that and so it is "finished". There's nothing else I want from it.

On the other hand, the cover of Asterism took about 10 days to create, the goal of which was to make "an aesthetically pleasing cover picture taking colour inspiration from the works of (specific list of artists)". I took my time designing it so that it looks aesthetically pleasing, made sure the anatomy is "correct" (a nebulous statement when it comes to stylised humans), took my time masking, and picking colours, and shading. I wanted it to "look good" to my own eyes so if something was not working I would go back, change it, alter it, move it around... that's the wonderful thing about personal art, you can take as long as you like making something satisfactory.

The funny thing is, with what the Asterism cover actually is (a cellshaded image), it could have been done probably in 4 days by the me 4 years ago. But that person was willing to sit 8-10 hours a day to draw with no breaks, she had little social life, and treated herself as a little circus seal performing tricks so that people clap around her, and the clapping was soooo nice because it meant that people remembered her and she mattered. And it worked for her! For long 10 years! Until her arm gave out, and the reality of never being able to draw again became more tangible than ever, and it's been following her like a fog ever since for the past 4 years. The me today works about 4 hours a day and every hour I take about a 30 minute break. I also don't post half the stuff I draw. There is also another aspect that dictates the speed of creating and that is familiarity with the subject matter. The less you know something, the fast you'll draw it! But as you get to know the intricacies of the process, and see all the building blocks, it will start taking *longer* because you will start accounting for every block. But then you'll eventually get familiar with the blocks and so the time spent on a picture will go down again! The cool yet overwhelming thing about art is that, there are always hundreds of building blocks. Form, composition, ambient occlusion, saturation, hue, light balance, line form...... and those are just the *some* of the generalised *categories*. And each category will have it's own subsection of building blocks! And then those blocks will interact with each other to create completely new area of expertise! This is crazy! Marcille sketch page took me only 3 hours to create because I am already quite familiar with linework - I have drawn 3-4 comicbooks worth of linework. This also means I am familiar with believable anatomy, more or less, which got utilised in the Asterism cover - the main bulk of linework got created during a 3h livestream. So.... what's the answer.... "It's all relative" is so unsatisfactory and probably not what you looked for. But you can draw something in 3 days and kill your body over it. Or you can become an expert in a field and dish the same picture out effortlessly in 8 hours. You can also split that 8h block over multiple days bringing you back up to 3 days. You could even add a whole day of visual research which might make your picture only marginally better. And even if we calculate it in terms of raw working time, pen-to-paper, like a self-inflicted capitalist tumor, that time can fluctuate still due to personal visual library and knowledge base. If I asked Tom Fox how long it takes for him to create his sketch pages his answer would probably be downward of 30 minutes. Yet I need whole 3 hours to create something *less* anatomically correct than him. And so here we are at the end of this perhaps unnecessary essay. And all we learned is this: it depends. Dry, not nuanced tl;dr, my personal timings: single sketch - 30mins; single linework pic 1-2h; Cellshaded illust - 16h; Rendered illust: 20-25h.

[anticmiscellaney]

I absolutely adore your work! What's your process been like for writing NewOldRare and developing Neil and Louis? Your art and character writing feel so genuine and realistic to me, so I'm really curious how you go about it!

Thank you! I've always been obsessed with character-driven stories and interaction, so I guess this is the result of years of practice and observation, and dismantling stories that do and don't work to see why.

Unfortunately, there isn't a clear way to explain it. It's one of those "you know when you get it right" things, requiring an eye developed over a long time. I will redraw things if I don't feel like I've captured the nuance I wanted to, and a few months later I'll look at it and see where I could have done better. Same with writing. I'm obsessed with pacing and page design, I had a moment of "that's how I think about it too" when Will Eisner described comic panels like music.

The technical approach is I make notes about stories I want to write, then I expand that into outlines, then scripts, then thumbnails, then I draw the comics and colour them and finalise the dialogue. At every stage I'm asking myself if it feels right, if I'm getting across what I want to. That's not to say there aren't surprises and things don't develop organically, but every stage is an attempt to solve as many problems as I can before the next stage. My thumbnails are quite detailed because it makes pencils easier, and I spend a while on them.

I have total aphantasia so I am operating off feeling rather than any mental images. I have no idea how it works and no idea why I pursue this when I'm missing what many visual artists describe as a crucial component. I just do it and I have better things to do (art) than wonder about something I can't change. I don't think it's made me a better or worse artist, though I think it has given me different ways of approaching/developing things. But also, literally everything about you makes your work different to everyone else's work.

You need to care. If your character is into music, listen to that music. If they have an old car that keeps breaking down, read up on common problems for that model. If they work as a film projectionist, watch a training film about using the machine. The characters care about things, have things in their lives that matter, have skills and interests and challenges. If I don't care enough to understand them, why should anyone reading it care, and also why am I writing it if I don't care?

So I do, and in caring I understand them better. This helps me develop characters/story but it also gives me so much more to write/draw. Understanding how things work and how they are done from a physical standpoint makes writing/drawing them easier too. The more you put into your head, the more you can get out later. I'll do way less for a 12 page short than for a 300 page graphic novel, obviously. Pick your battles, a little can go a long way.

They tell artists to collect visual references - solid advice - but you should collect substance too. If you pay attention, you will hear and see things you could never in a million years make up.

I find online socialising difficult, so I go out regularly and talk to people, or just hang around and observe. Chatting with strangers mostly involves listening to them. No one in gay spaces is interested in flirting with me (I'm rather homely and queer men assume I'm straight) but I think an audience is just as appealing sometimes, and maybe even harder to find. You'd be amazed what people will tell you if you're genuinely interested and listening. I once spent forty minutes at a sci-fi con talking to a guy who'd recently gotten into fisting. While I have zero personal desire to partake in that activity (and he had no interest in being fisted by me), I'm engaged, I'm invested, I'm asking questions, spare no detail.

I collect behavior and movement and the ways people interact too. Reading stories on reddit or whatever is one thing, but the words might not be as interesting as the way they're standing, the way their hands move, the way they respond. A guy in a bar once literally humped my leg like a dog because he felt I wasn't paying enough attention to him. I would never think of that as a response to that situation, but he did, and he followed through. Fortunately my friend had just tried to drunkenly sit down and missed the chair, otherwise I would never hear the end of it.

I see the leghumper around sometimes, he's got a boyfriend and avoids making eye contact with me, thank god.

[lizaluvsthis]

I now present to you... my fan child of SMG34!

Powerpuff Trio!

And now for lore! :))

MG10 - Meme (Mega) Guardian Ten

Preferably called as "Em" or "Ten'

Age: 16

Left handed

Demisexual/Abrosexual

Wants to do best like her fathers did

Overworking.

Personality- MG10 is an ambivert-introvert, they tend to do alot of helping with works on the house and is desperate enough to train her own meme powers. So that one day she can be as strong as her papas are.

MG10 is very awkward when coming to social interactions, but it does go smooth when you get to share the same interests/hobbies with them. She likes to paint rather than using a pencil to draw.

They're very nice with people when their guts tell her its fine, she gets mixed feelings or upsetting guts when with suspicious people (if tag6 or aster were here...)

She does seem friendly at all times but occassionally doesnt depending on her moodswing.

When she's upset she'd literally break a table and throw a tantrum-

She's like the older one to take care of stuff and their only priority is to keep everyone safe from the bads

They're not much into showing affections in public but prefers more in private to feel safe.

They don't sometimes understand that other people flirt to her so she sometimes pushes them away.

They do like circles and stars, polkadots are what fascinates her the most. Even ladybugs.

How was Ten born?

Biography: Mg10 is made from a usb that malfunctioned and got sent to the graveyard, after some investigations from that loud crash that brought to SMG3's concern. He and eggdog saw a small grey usb.

Due to Three's curiousity, he approached infront of the usb after it opened the front entrance. He happens to see a small unconsious child falling in a deep sleep from their nap.

SMG3 called Four and the two other guardians to check out what had just happened from the latest discovery three witnessed.

SMG1 and Two both aren't sure about their opinions but they thought that it'd be a next generation for the new guardian to rise upon.

The small child wakes up from the couch and doesn't remember anything but the number 10

SMG1 and Two looked at the child then to Three and four, telling them that they have the same resemblance with the main indigo friends.

So SMG1 gave Three and Four a word to raise her good, and that when the time comes. It would be her turn to be the next guardian.

SMG3 and Four thought all of it was ridiculous since they were only a kid, even after. The two agreed from the given mission, and decided to raise Her.

SMG2 gave her name as MG10. With a now programmed mind, ten's memories started to collect this information and now called themself. MG10.

Other infos:

Likes:

fruits- Mangoes, Strawberries, Raspberry, and oranges.

To do stuff and finish what is done.

To learn and draw/study of flowers/study of spaces

Train her meme powers, watch/edit meme contents

Cooking or Baking

Her aunt Merp :]/p

Singing to songs

Bonus for doing @merp0515 's design

[MG10's favorite aunt is Merp! Crossover universe that they were 11 years of age while Merp babysits]

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

Happy Nimona week mfs!!!

Day 1: Pride (and a touch of graffiti) I wanted to draw my two monster kids and highlight some of their design differences (I love them both so much)

I used the colors of the genderfluid pride flag and the demigirl pride flag for each of them respectively :) more of my headcanons on their identities below.

I definitely think they're both portrayed super differently in each version and I think their identities would reflect that.

Both have a generally femme presentation, Movie Nimona establishes multiple times that she's not a girl. I base my headcanon that she's genderfuild off of the response to the line "now you're a boy," where she responds "I am today." That implies to me that her gender identity is in flux to a degree, but I can also see headcanons of her being agender as an agender person myself. Movie Nimona is not a human, nor has she ever been one, so I see gender as being somewhat lost on her. I also imagine her to be asexual, largely because she seems to be a perma-child and the only member of whatever species she is and I don't know if growing up is in the cards for her. Idk. I just can't picture shipping her with anyone lol, but I do understand headcanons that she is interested in girls and I'm not like. Opposed to them lol.

Comic Nimona approaches her identity in a much different way. She is a human, or at least was born as a human, and from what anyone can tell, was assigned female at birth or has been presenting as such since early childhood. She refers to herself as a girl or a lady multiple times, including while shapshifted into the form of a little boy (Ballister complains about carrying her, and she says "it's rude to comment on a lady's weight.") For this reason I personally headcanon her to be either a cis girl or a demigirl (because of her proclivity towards shapeshifting into men and boys rather than women and girls). Since she is human and appears to age somewhat normally, I imagine her to be bisexual because. Idk. That's just the vibe I get lmfao.

Also M! gives any pronoun vibes and C! gives she/her (in my opinion). We respect ALL queer youths in this house 🩷

[diabolus1exmachina]

Effeffe Berlinetta 

Berlinetta is a name of the past, a name that conjures up a very specific type of car: a high-performing sports car with closed bodywork, a 2-seater (or 2+2 at most). The name Berlinetta embodies all the philosophy of the first car made by Effeffe. A car built today in exactly the same way as craftsmen moulded the famous GTs in the late 1950s: the mechanics borrowed from the series and redesigned to suit new needs, a hand-made chassis and bodywork. All starting from a blank sheet. An original car with a strong personality, in form and in deed, which is the best possible homage to the skill of these craftsmen. A generation we have perhaps forgotten, that offered the Italian car tradition - and the history of motoring generally - plenty in terms of uniqueness, charm and design. A product built and finished by hand, like in the past, with a tubular chassis, hand-beaten aluminium bodywork and wire wheels, seeking to guess and please the taste of the owner, expressing a timeless character.

The Berlinetta prototype was born in 2014, little more than a scale model. Made and finished, but not running: the mechanics are approximate, and it has never really been fine-tuned. But it is beautiful. An authentic time-machine. It seems as if it has just been found in a hay barn and dusted down. In addition, being practically a style model, its lines are pure and smooth, not “dirtied” by license plates or indicators. So beautiful, in fact, that, almost as a game, the Frigerio brothers sent a few photos to the people in charge of the Concorso di Eleganza di Villa d’Este. And, a surprise, they sent an invitation to present the Berlinetta in the Concept Cars category. A dream within a dream, the self-built car made its début and the world’s most prestigious and glamorous elegance competition.

Along with the interest and pleasure shown immediately by the public and the media, this would have gone to anyone’s head. But as we know, the Frigerio brothers aren’t the sort of people who sit on their laurels, and they decided the play another chip. They realised that their idea could become something more than just an adventure, and decided to exploit their years of relationships, acquaintances, friendships and skill to set up a workshop to produce the Berlinetta in small series. An exclusive, tailored and fully customisable product. Built as in the past by a handful of old craftsmen wanting to get back in the game, but with the help of the best technologies available today.

The lines of the Berlinetta need no explanation. They are a well-balanced mix of classic, late-50s stylistic elements, from the muscular bumpers to the oval grille, a hint of rear fins and the double bubble roof. The definition of the lines of the car talks of an approach that is about as poetically anachronistic as you can get. The Frigerio brothers started by placing the mechanics and seats on the floor, tracing the basic outline around them with chalk, then gradually building the chassis, welding, cutting and welding again. Following the curves of the tubular metal frame, they then moved onto the bodywork, beaten entirely by hand in aluminium according to the artisanal sensitivity of Vittorio, who has a good hand, assisted by a few panel beaters with forty years’ experience. And from there, the project moved on in a kind of reverse engineering, working backwards by making 3D scans of the shapes to produce the drawings and designs.

Style and proportions have that instantly recognisable Italian flair, as does the passenger compartment, entirely leather-lined with a dashboard painted in the same colour as the car, and the Alfa Romeo-derived mechanics. Who, working according to the Fia Gr2 specifications of the 1971 European Touring challenge, they were able to achieve around 200 HP at 6800 rpm, with maximum torque of around 30 Kg/m at 4400 rpm, on the road with no technological support.

[eliyips]

HOW DO YOU MAKE X SO FRIENDSHAPED?!

But also genuinely curious about the design translation from the actual skins to your interpretations due to the small but mighty details added in

Infodump as hard as you want!

If i ever pass up an opportunity to talk about my X design, it will be because I am either dead, or dying!!! neither are true at time of posting, so here you go! I will be going over my ENTIRE design process for Xisuma, starting with my initial design:

My initial design for Xisuma wasn't anything special, in my opinion. Most of what I included was directly ripped from the classic Doomslayer. Though, the face scars were inherited from fanon, of course. :) The changes that I did make were in service of having things make more sense for Xisuma. Namely, the belt buckle, and the fabric covering the arms...

The belt buckle is simple - bullets didn't really make sense as a design motif, all considered - but the fabric is more complicated. I have a couple different ideas about why Xisuma wears the suit, but I haven't settled one way or the other on some of the specifics, so forgive me if I'm a bit vague. Ultimately, It is just my impression that X is not comfortable having his body visible more than it needs to be, whether that be for health-related reasons or for personal/emotional reasons. I don't intend to ever draw Xisuma with his helmet off, because of that. To me, it feels like a violation of boundaries. To be perfectly clear though, that's just for me - more power to other artists who draw him without the helmet/armor! :)

By the time I was full-on fixated on Xisuma, I realized I was unsatisfied with this first pass at his design. Mainly, in regards to the helmet. So I did more work on it!

I feel like my re-design process for the helmet is a good example of the importance of using reference. :) I did a lot of unsatisfactory sketches before pulling up pictures of real helmets, at which point I feel like I settled on something I was happy with very quickly.

Specifically, I referenced motocross helmets! My choice of reference was mostly driven by my passing interest in sports equipment design, though motocross helmets are similarly bulky and have the same distinct mouthpiece as X's helmet, so I think it was a good choice. I also feel like the pixels at the top of Xisuma's skin can be pretty easily read as the brim of a helmet, so it works out!

Other than the motocross helmet influence, I also made the choice to add tubing to the sides and back of the helmet. This rolls with my headcanons about the purpose of the helmet, connecting to air tanks on his back! I also think it helps to distinguish him from the doomslayer, in addition to the new helmet shape.

The only other changes I made were to the helmet's palette, added a few additional grey tones for contrast, and the positioning of his scars. I decided I wanted them to be a little off-center, leaning towards his left eye. I'm pretty inconsistent with how I draw the scars though, lol, so it changed again by the next time I drew him.

At this point my design is mostly settled for him, and I don't expect it to change very significantly any time soon. I don't have much else to say about it, but I listed the other iterative changes I made to the design above! I figure I will continue making small tweaks to his design every time I draw him :)

That said... I have yet to answer your initial question! So I will answer it now:

"HOW DO YOU MAKE X SO FRIENDSHAPED?!"

My answer is that it's (almost) all in the eyes!!! I have already talked pretty extensively about Xisuma's eyes. So I won't dwell for too long! In short, human facial recognition is very closely tied to the eyes. The ability to see the eyes of a character clearly affords you a lot of flexibility when it comes to making a design seem approachable, or "friend-shaped." I painted over a screenshot of doomguy to illustrate my point!

My drawings tend towards being a little cutesy, of course, so that helps :) but you can see that the bright, saturated color, big distinct eyes, and less harsh expression all contribute to making him seem like he is less of a threat, despite this literally just being the doomslayer.

Another thing that helps is, again, related to the style I draw in. My art is very "clean" looking, not gritty. I use a lot of soft shape language and don't texture things too heavily. With Xisuma specifically, I also make no effort to make him seem intimidating. I use very neutral angles when drawing him, I don't frame him in a way that makes him seem intimidating or imposing, I don't pose him too confidently or angrily. Because he's not that kind of guy! Though it would be an interesting challenge to try and make him look as intimidating as possible :) I certainly think he could be quite scary, if he wanted to be. Just a matter of what I'm trying to convey.

... I think that's all I have to say for now! Once again, blown away by all the nice things people have to say about my Xisuma design and my art. Everyone here has been so kind and encouraging, and I really appreciate that. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to yell about Xisuma! If you have follow up questions, by all means, I am ready to answer :)

[dice-wizard]

Hello everyone looking for a new fantasy tabletop game!

As it nears backer release, there's never been a better time to pre-order Exalted: Essence

Pre-ordering gets you access to the beta document and the early release backer pdf.

What's Exalted you ask?

Exalted is an epic fantasy TTRPG where players play the titular Exalted - humans elevated to superhuman/demigod status - in a wild and unique setting that draws inspiration from the ancient world rather than medieval Europe. Creation (the setting) draws key inspirations from the entire world. If you're used to having to make yourself visible on your own in other fantasy, there's probably some representation in Exalted.

It has explicit queer and trans themes about finding your people, creating your own identity, and having the power to punch back at the people who hate you. This isn't incidental. The writing staff is queer as hell. You can hear me break this down more here.

Curious to learn all you can? Well you can get a detailed overview of the entire game on the podcast Systematic Understanding of Everything hosted by myself, @presidentofbirds and @phillycuriosity

If I'm used to D&D 5e why should I pick this up?

Well, I presume if you're reading this post you're already interested in trying something new, so:

The entire game in one book. Exalted: Essence is self contained, character types, equipment, enemies and all!

An exciting style of fantasy that's different than classic D&D but like, textually gay, and very easy to have scenes like ballroom fights, epic galas, and touching homoerotic healing scenes - no house rules required.

But also, tactical depth and combat you can really sink your teeth into if fighting monsters and villains is your bag.

An excuse to use all your d10s at once

Character building and advancement mechanics designed to be familiar to a 5e audience. Characters "level up" based on story beats, and have Advantages, which are functionally similar to class and race features.

A world welcoming to most heroic archetypes, so it's easy to convert your favorite OC.

Extremely kissable dragons, demons, gods, elementals, ghosts, faeries, and unnamed ancient horrors

I'm a fan of a previous edition, what's Essence got for me?

Design focused on alleviating some of the previous versions' missteps

Virtues are back, baby

2e fans will find it an improvement from second edition's mechanical strengths - it's pretty easy to convert all your favorite 2e Charms to XS.

Streamlined versions of familiar rules to make it painless to introduce new friends to the game we love.

The Cliff's notes on Ex3's new Exalt types.

Did I mention it's all of Exalted in one book?

How does it play?

d10 dice pool looking for 7,8,9 as successes. 10s count as two successes, which can lead to explosive, heroic outcomes

Combat system designed to keep all players engaged the entire time - even characters who aren't focused on fighting at all.

Combat also narrows the gap between experienced and new players and players who want to win at RPGs and players who just wanna vibe so GMs aren't tearing their hair out trying to balance encounters.

Social system designed to resolve in a single roll so you can be immersed in role play and not interrupt it with constant rolling - without sacrificing a variety of social approaches

"Ventures" system for characters working on long term projects from traveling across the world to crafting magical wonders to building communities without forcing this to be "downtime" activity

Characters have access to Charms - exception-based special powers that make them extremely good at whatever they focus on.

It's easily my favorite game (and the project I developed that I'm the proudest of), so I'm excited for everyone to try it out.

[byghostface]

✿ Depiction of Hana & Ren (from Damian's Manga) ✿

-

✤ Style of Damian Wayne ✤

Great understanding of fundamentals and a good visual memory.

Has used up a lot of sketchbooks, sketching nature and surrounding with pencils in his free time.

Have different purposes use of his sketchbooks, but have a main one for daily practice. Using the sketchbook page by page, marked the date for his art section was made on the top page corner, like a diary.

Love to draw animals but still draw some people too. Family, friends, and pets are prominent themes.

Smooth line and soft, delicate shading. Neat observation and attention to detail.

Do well-planning drafts and thoughtful studying. Practice and draw more subjects for the ideal drawings he has in mind.

Lately, Damian had a heavy interest in learning the shojo manga art style. ( Try to reference/inmates Tezuka Osamu Sansei's works )

.

❤︎ Style of Nika ❤︎

Use markers & ball-point pens more than pencils.

Doing great on a single page of the paper, but using the sketchbook poorly. Often failing to fill the whole book. Has neat little drawings throughout the sketchbook instead, reflecting her inconsistent drawing habits.

The drawings are not in the right order in Nika's sketchbook, she opened a random page and found a blank space to draw. Marked the date for the finished art on the corner of it, if she still remembered.

Likes to draw objects, design symbols, and stylish cartoony characters. Death themes and classic weaponaryies are prominent.

Thick angular lines and light shading with pencil.

Nika rarely did the full details sketch before the lineart, and even if she did, the final lineart on top is still a different variation from the original sketch ( it bothered Nika sometimes, but Damian found her subconscious method quite interesting ). She would draft the little thumbnail art instead, this way is more helpful for her to visualize the planned drawings.

Still trying to find her style of drawing people, had tried a lot of approaches. Recently, Nika has learned a lot from Damian and soaked up his advice and tips like a sponge.

-

❀ Hana & Ren ❀

(with the canon looks in Robin 2021)

.

❥ 1 ． 2 ． 3 ． 4

❥ head canons: 1．2 (dates and activities)．3 (taking care of each other, sleep habits, gifts) ．pet names．art styles．asking game

[draconicdeityarts]

COMMISSIONS SALE

Hello everyone! Doing a sale on symmetrical headshots and mystery box commissions! Due to the way the system/payment schedule works, I won’t get any payments from my current job until March, so if you’re willing to commission me I would really appreciate the help!

ALL COMMISSIONS LISTED HERE ARE ON SALE! THEY WILL ONLY BE PRICED THIS LOW FOR A LIMITED TIME, UNTIL SLOTS ARE FILLED! My commissions will still be open even if these slots are filled, but they will be at full price!

SYMMETRICAL HEADSHOTS

$25 EACH, 5 SLOTS!

A symmetrical headshot of a character of your choosing- it can be any species or kind of character, but please be sure that the design is mostly or completely symmetrical to work with this type of piece! You will receive updates with the initial sketch and lines stages throughout the process. The final piece will have a transparent background and works great for profile photos or icons for character organization! This commission type also has a very fast turnaround- your piece will be there before you know it!

1: OPEN

2: OPEN

3: OPEN

4: OPEN

5: OPEN

MYSTERY BOX COMMISSIONS

$20 EACH, 5 SLOTS!

Want a commission option where you can potentially get more bang for your buck? Mystery Box commissions are fully colored, square canvas artistic liberty commissions. The way it works is that you give me a character or simple prompt, and then whatever comes out will be a surprise! (You can however, let me know what you like/dislike in advance so that I can make sure you are satisfied with the final piece :)) Each will at LEAST be a bust drawing, but you’re also likely to get a half or full body as well depending on how I approach the given prompt!

1: CLOSED

2: CLOSED

3: CLOSED

4: CLOSED

5: OPEN

All orders under $60 are to be paid upfront in full, and those that are above $60 will be paid half upfront and half upon completion of the commission. (If you are buying more than one piece, it will be treated as a sum total, one order!) I can take both PayPal and Zelle.

If you are interested in a commission from me that isn’t any of the ones listed for sale here, let me know and I can give you a quote for the price! I will do other types, but they will be at full price. I do mixed media illustration, acrylic canvas paintings, various kinds of sculpture, and more! For any of the above, including the commissions listed within this post, please dm me here on tumblr :)

Even if you don’t buy a commission from me, please consider reblogging this post :) Thank you!

[evelmiina]

Hi, Eva! Love your works so much! How did you develop your shape language? Do you also simplify shapes as what we see in your illustrative works when you do studies from life/movies/any resources?

Hey thank you for your message! Glad to hear you like my works When I study I will definitely simplify the subject just to be able to draw/paint it, but I try to be aware of not stylizing too much from the get go. I do have my own biases though and there's habits and sometimes strong inclination to draw certain way. Like the way I use some tools I'm familiar with. I usually make decisions on the fly, like sometimes I want to draw very stylistically from reference and other times I think there is something interesting but I set out to figure it out while I draw it. I think when I really try to be focused and observe earnestly what I see it helps me to imagine better and come up with new shapes and ideas. I've noticed it's important to me to not expect too much from a sketch or exercise, or it turns into something performative where the focus shifts from my desire to do things and figure it out, to expecting someone to see it and being evaluated. Anime and feeling of movement whether it's animation or dancing and acting have definitely influenced a lot in my shape language. I'm aiming for certain level of clarity and design without losing freedom. I always feel like it's kind of battle between emotion and discipline in myself, or having sort of contradicting approaches too. I think I have distinctly western influences from storybooks, golden age illustrators and animation but I don't particularly follow western animation design principles like line of action or squash and stretch. I always feel like I don't want to say "too much" or that some expressions and designs feel too descriptive to me. Not to say I don't like or admire it in other people's work because I do, it's just that I have strong sense of what feels just right amount of ambiguous to me that is hard to explain. I think anime character shapes are more defined by symbolism and graphic composition of the drawing in frame than western characters and that appeals to me. It is more kin to comic panels whereas western animation would be more closely kin to film composition. Obviously there is variety and overlap but that is what initially influenced me.

[infinitebrians]

Favorite Games of 2023 Part Final: Pokemon Crystal Clear Clown Edition

Pokemon Crystal Clear is a romhack for the Gameboy Color game that mainly advertises itself as Pokemon Crystal modified so now it is entirely playable as a free roaming open world. Clown Edition is just what I called the rom of the game after creating and injecting a pokemon trainer sprite sheet into the game so I can play as my own character, Clown. I played the whole game on my New 3ds XL, it took a quite a bit of effort to get this exact version of the game working on my 3ds. It was incredibly worth it, this is not just my favorite game, but favorite 'game experience', and even easily my new pick for all time favorite pokemon game in the series.

The game itself was fun and a refreshing new way to experience a pokemon game but the overall experience of getting the game working on a hacked 3ds and playing with my own created sprites was in itself a very fun bit of hobby work. It has revived my love for playing older games on real hardware, something that I have found myself continuing to do this year. Also, seeing my own art in the game and said art feel cohesive with the world ruled and I want to experience that more in some other way. This game made me more into pokemon than I have felt with official releases in a pretty long while, and I even liked my time playing Scarlet. I loved playing on a handheld, I loved seeing the really well made art from gen 2, and I loved being able to put a bit of myself into the game as well.

Apologies for how rambley this gets, I really liked the game but still somehow found it hard to really organize my thoughts on why exactly.

I wanted to revisit this hack after briefly trying it in 2018 because of this excellent Hazel video (https://youtu.be/96YimpRHQHs). The video details various life stories while talking about favorite locations in the games getting me to think about my own favorite spots in the games and where I was personally at the time. The video also got me to start realizing that Porygon might be one of my favorite pokemon in the series and caused me to make drawings of them that I'm still quite fond of. This then made me recall Crystal Clear which contains a feature of surprisingly deep character customization including a wide selection of possible starter picks one of which being Porygon. So, compelled by the allure of having a fun adventure with a cyber duck, I picked up my hacked 3ds and started the game again.

Crystal Clear is a game that allowed for me to be even more creative about how to approach building my team and creating my own adventure out of playing pokemon. It's not for everyone, it wasn't even for me the first time I tried this game back in 2018. Crystal Clear definitely lends itself much more to the idea of creating your own fun than typical linear pokemon games where if you're not interested in that more free form exploration, the game would feel aimless. I even felt this when starting this playthrough, but the goal of pokedex completion was what encouraged to explore and discover Crystal Clear's world. The game was always surprising me in both the number of quality of life features it provided as well as fun new areas to explore or to better make the world more connected. Over time, the game felt more at home to me from getting more familiar with locations and developing a new sense of fondness for several towns in Johto I frequented. The change from a linear progression to that open ended one gave me a better sense of the world and towns had a bit more life to them as places felt more inviting to hang around in.

I love this game's implementation of the pokedex. It has been designed so it will display just about every piece of information about a pokemon, where to find them, when they evolve, what moves they learn, and so on. While the presentation is definitely clunky due to having to have all of that information on a GBC screen, I found this such an invaluable tool to have in game that for the first time in the entire pokemon series I was heavily making use of the in game pokedex for its intended purpose. Being able to look up relevant information for pokemon all entirely in game without having to have a phone/computer nearby with bulbapedia open all the time is just greatly appreciated. While the desire to keep some mystery around pokemon and how they evolve or what moves they'll learn can be part of the fun with the series, I think I just prefer being able to tell quickly if this is a stone evolution pokemon or not.

This was the first time I ever completed a pokedex in any pokemon game, something I've always wanted to do but never fully committed to the whole process. This is because of my own laziness toward how challenging that always was in proper releases due to so many pokemon being obscured behind multiple games and others being locked behind real world timed events. That or the fact that later games in the series just outright make the the act of getting a truly complete pokedex feel almost impossible. Instead, I finally accomplished a completed pokedex in a romhack that was made to make that sort of challenge feel reasonable with modified drop pools and changed events so everything within that one game is catchable. While now possible, I still found myself challenged with a game world spanning adventure of looking behind every rock, tree, and patch of grass to find every funny little guy I could. One particular memory was me spending maybe a week insisting on finding a dragonite in an encounter to catch which has a 1% chance of happening rather than spending the time leveling and evolving one instead. A very, very long process of hitting a tree over and over but made hilarious when later repeating the process for a tyranitar, another 1% chance encounter rate, was done in minutes. It was really fun having a plan ahead with how I was going to get every pokemon, constantly using expshare and other things to level guys to get them to evolve while try catching other guys. The ultimate reward of that certificate is still a pretty hilariously small, though I still kind of want to figure out a way to print mine out.

What made this game so special to me was simply just adding Clown to it. A simple change that was a surprisingly complicated process of getting a crash course on how GBC color palettes and size limitations worked and getting my hacked 3ds up to date on its software. Creating the various Clown sprite drawings was fun, I always liked working in those sorts of strict limitations. Then finally getting the injection to work and seeing my own art in game on real hardware felt surreal, something in this handheld game console I've had forever, on a game I loved for years has something I made in it. Even the process of getting all of this working, as tedious as it was moving game saves and getting color values just right, made this whole experience more special to me.

Something I figured while playing this as well as also from now having also played Dragon Warrior 1+2 and also currently Final Fantasy 5, I really love playing things on a handheld. Playing games on a handheld device has been so much more compelling of a thing to me than ever than playing on a proper TV/computer. The aspect of being able to just let the console sit on my desk and simply open and close it when interested made the feeling of investing myself into a game so much easier to approach. I want to just keep playing more old games on a handheld now, I'm already planning on other games to play and how I should definitely hack my Vita. My friends keep tempting me with one of those emulator handhelds and I don't even need one but they look really cool though.

I have so much respect for people who make fan works, hacks, and other unofficial projects it has been just amazing to see passion projects happen all the time in the gaming community. Playing this romhack that's been a years long, ongoing project in two different eras (2018 and then again in 2023) of it's existence has only further cemented my admiration. People wanting to be creative and open about their love for this form of art is such a wonderful thing to behold. These moments of creative passion being shared to everyone feels so important, reminding that the projects with the biggest budgets and names are not the end all be all of the medium, despite their desperation to be so. Thank you so much for wanting to share such lovely things with the world.

[daresplaining]

Mike Murdock's Sunglasses: On Character Design and Autonomy

I've written a little in the past about character design in regards to the translation of zany alter ego 1960s Mike Murdock into slightly-more-grounded, at least 85% more real 21st century Mike Murdock. Specifically, I talked with artist Phil Noto about Mike's outfits in Daredevil #606-612, and analyzed the clothing choices made by the creative team in the 2020 Annual. However, one specific detail that I find interesting in Mike's transformation from Matt's hyperactive id to his own autonomous person that I haven't really written about yet is his sunglasses-- when he wears them, when he stops, and how this shift may or may not align with his journey.

Matt: "Let's see now-- I'll just muss up the mop, to give myself that carefree tousled look! A fella like Mike wouldn't be caught dead with a simple Ivy-League hair comb! And, I'll have to give my specs a coffee break for a while, as I cover my sightless eyes in a more colorful way-- If the attorney-at-law business ever gets slow, I might just decide to open a school of method acting! Yessir! Stanislavsky had nothing on me! Now, all I've gotta do is change my personality! I figure a clown like Mike Murdock is sure to be on all the time!" Daredevil vol. 1 #26 by Stan Lee, Gene Colan, Frank Giacoia, and Artie Simek

Matt and his dark glasses were inseparable in the 60s-- literally, to the point that he even apparently wore them under his Daredevil mask (fortunately, he doesn't do that anymore). The clear hesitance of DD artists in this period to draw their blind protagonist's uncovered eyes is likely one of the reasons that when it came time for Matt to invent himself a fake sighted twin, the sunglasses stayed on. This has not always been the case. In the years since, Matt has taken on several sighted identities in which he does not wear glasses at all-- notably, con artist Jack Batlin in the 90s. Of the two approaches, the former makes slightly more in-universe sense. As someone with no vision at all, who was blinded in a physically damaging accident, logic suggests that Matt's eyes would look different from those of a sighted person-- most likely due to chemical burns/scarring, but at the very least from things like a lack of eye contact. Thus, the choice for Matt to simply switch up his style of shades for the Mike look, rather than taking the risk of foregoing them entirely, feels logical (even if it doesn't always match up with the way Matt's eyes are actually depicted, but that's a topic for another post).

As it turned out, the oversized, colorful shades ended up tying perfectly into the loudness of the rest of "Mike's" outfits, becoming a memorable staple of the look that Matt crafted for his fake twin-- a look that was as distant from the classic Matt Murdock suit and tie (and simple, dignified shades) as he could manage. These shades were iconically, undeniably Mike's. However, they were still born from the use of sunglasses as a visual shorthand for-- and Matt's in-character response to-- his blindness. A Daredevil reader in 1968 might have looked at ol' Loudmouth Mike and asked the question: If this guy were a real person, independent of Matt, with his own backstory and reasons for dressing the way he does-- would he still choose to wear dark glasses?

Mike: "Well, as I live and breathe! You're Daredevil, right? Friend of my brother, if I don't miss my guess. Real pleasure to meet you at last." Daredevil vol. 5 #606 by Charles Soule, Phil Noto, and Clayton Cowles ("As I live and breathe" is such a funny thing for him to say in this scene.)

Enter: Fragment-Boy Mike, and the beginnings of an answer.

When it came to transforming the concept of Mike Murdock into a fully realized character of his own -- not to mention pulling him out of the 1960s and into the 2010s-- some core Mike Murdock elements were dropped by the creative team, both for the sake of streamlining the narrative and in order to match the tone of the contemporary comic. Fragment Mike is no longer Daredevil's alter ego; in fact, he claims in his first appearance in Daredevil #606 that he has never even met DD before. Gone are the loud clothes, the primary colors, the waistcoats, the fedora with the feather in it. Curiously, all that remains of his original Look(TM)...is the sunglasses.

Foggy: "That is...correct. How did you...?" Mike: "Because I ain't him. I'm me. And now, Foggy...you need to call my brother." Daredevil vol. 5 #608 by Charles Soule, Phil Noto, and Clayton Cowles

Fragment Mike existed in a kind of limbo that neither he, nor Matt, nor even his "creator" Reader really understood-- a tortuous state of both being and non-being, in which he believed himself to be real and then had his worldview shattered by learning that no one else saw him that way. Mike claimed his autonomy and fought for his right to live throughout that story arc, but the simple truth was that he was born out of Matt-- specifically, out of Matt's case files, from which Reader accidentally spawned him-- and the memories he possessed of being anyone/anything else were false. He was nothing but a twisted, reanimated echo of an identity his brother had created, dark glasses included; Matt but not Matt, physically separate but still bound to his brother.

Mike: "I'm Matt Murdock's twin brother, but...but I'm not. I've got some fake memories. I'm like a shell of a thing...but inside...I can tell I didn't live through anything...and I think...I think it's driving me crazy." Daredevil vol. 6 Annual #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Manuel Garcia, Le Beau Underwood, Chris Mooneyham, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Clayton Cowles

But! Fragment Mike, just like Matt, maybe because of Matt, is a fighter. He does not take being fake lying down. Through some Norn Stone magic, our fragment became a Real Boy, with real memories of a real backstory. And if we take a look through that backstory, we finally receive an answer to that 1968 DD fan's hypothetical question, because...

Daredevil vol. 6 Annual #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Manuel Garcia, Le Beau Underwood, Chris Mooneyham, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Clayton Cowles

The moment Mike Murdock becomes a real person, the sunglasses vanish.

Look back through Daredevil volume 6. Once he is officially, cosmically real, the only time we ever see Mike wearing dark glasses is when he is dressed up as Matt (ohhh, the poetry of it all!). He is wearing them, standing in Matt's apartment, when he dies in Matt's place-- fated, in the end, to never entirely escape his brother's gravitational pull-- but what matters is that the sunglasses tied Mike to his origins as his twin in a costume, and the loss of them indicates fully and utterly that Mike has broken away and become his own person. We even get this fascinating scene at the beginning of volume 7:

Matt: "...It was Matt. He came back from rehab, went to his apartment... I don't know what the #$@% Fisk was thinking, but I know they've got history and... Ah, Butch. He killed my brother." Daredevil vol. 7 #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto, Matthew Wilson, and Clayton Cowles

This is Matt Murdock, in the year 2022, once more pretending to be Mike...post-Norn Stone reality rewrite. And this time? No sunglasses. In fact, Matt claims that the key to a foolproof Mike Murdock disguise is in the eyes: "Not just making sure they faced the right direction...but that no matter what, he had kindness in them..."

Do I love Mike Murdock wearing smarmy shades? Of course I do. But I love a good piece-of-clothing-as-allegory just as much, and I love peeling back the layers of identity to discover who Mike really is when he is not his brother.

[bluedalahorse]

A highly incomplete introduction to AuDHD for YR fans who want to write more Sara Eriksson

Greetings, friends! In my time in the Young Royals fandom, I’ve seen a few people mention they were interested writing Sara but they didn’t know how to approach her neurodivergence, or that they find it intimidating. I figured it might be worth compiling a post where I share both ADHD and autism resources I’ve found helpful, as well as elements of my personal experience I draw on when writing Sara.

This post is by no means exhaustive, and I could probably say a lot more. But I figured I’d get it out there in case it was helpful to anyone else.

Part One: Resources and Such

Yo Samdy Sam is an AuDHD vlogger who talks about her experiences, and I find her video about how autism and ADHD show up together pretty informative. Since Sara is both it’s good to have a grasp on these nuances! Yo Samdy Sam’s other videos are also ones I’d recommend.

I’m autistic, now what? is also a good channel to check out for someone talking about their day to day experiences of autism. Her videos are a little longer, but she focuses often on how things have changed from her childhood to her adulthood, which can be helpful if you’re thinking about Sara at different ages/writing flashbacks/working on fic set in the future/etc.

Chloe Hayden, who stars in another teen drama called Heartbreak High, is both autistic and ADHD, and very fun and positive. She presents quite differently than Sara does—lots more talking and energy—but I think she’s a good example of every neurodivergent person presenting differently. Also, people should watch Heartbreak High and write me some fic where Sara and Quinni meet because I want it.

How to ADHD is mostly geared toward practical life skills when you’ve got ADHD, but it doesn’t neglect the way those interact with emotional well-being. Sara might try some of these strategies while working on her school work and chores, either because an adult recommended she do so or because it’s part of a system she worked out for herself. Also, the videos are perfectly designed for ADHD brains, and i have acquired many ways to self-accommodate by watching them.

Jessie Gender is autistic and does commentary about lots of nerdy things and trans rights. I really liked her video on The Queen’s Gambit where she talks about autistic girls and sex. If you’re planning to write spicer fic about Sara (which people should write more of imo) then Jessie might be a good resource!

Marieke Nijkamp is a multiply disabled author, and one of her disabilities is autism. I still have to get around to reading her novel length books but her short story “Better For All the World” made me cry and is one of my formative sargust mentor texts. I really recommend it if you can get a hold of the anthology The Radical Element. (Although, heads up, the story deals with the Buck v Bell case of 1927, which is difficult subject matter.)

Disability in Kidlit has some great resources on writing autistic characters from a craft perspective. If you’re going to write specifically from Sara’s point of view, or even if you’re not, it’s worth reading this article about the autistic voice in fiction and this article about humanizing autistic characters. Other articles on the site are also great!

I’m going to talk more about my personal experiences under the cut below…

Part 2: My personal experiences & takeaways

Sooooo if you’ve met one AuDHD person, you’ve met one AuDHD person. I can’t really claim to speak for all AuDHD people, and I’ve only recently gotten my diagnosis anyway. That said, a lot of my own personal experience colors how I write Sara. So in the interest of transparency, I’ve gone ahead and listed some of the things I’ve thought about when I write her.

An important note before I get started—this is not, actually, meta or analysis of the show. I’m not trying to tell you want I “really” think is going on with Sara Eriksson, or what the writers intended, or what the show is saying. You may read her differently, and I’m sure your interpretation is just as informed by your own experiences as mine. So please don’t take this as a criticism if your interpretation is different.

What I am explaining here instead are the ways that my personal experiences as an AuDHD person have influenced my perception of Sara, which in turn translates to how I’ve made sense of her storyline and written her in fanfic. None of these are “excuses,” but they are explorations. You can look at it as me examining my own thinking and writing process. I’m also opening up about some of my experiences and being a little bit vulnerable. If you have questions about any of these things below, or you want to know more for your own fic, you are always welcome to message me. I may not be able to get back to you right away but I can help however I am able. There are also some things I might feel more comfortable discussing in depth one-on-one, so direct messages might be better in that case, too.

Anyway, let’s begin…

Polarized strengths and weaknesses: In my own experience as an AuDHD person there are some pretty dramatic contrasts between what I’m good at and what I suck at. I’m in the 99% percentile in some skills and the 2% percentile in others. This adds up to stuff like, I read the Sherlock Holmes stories for the first time when I was eight and Les Misérables when I was eleven, but I cannot drive a car or learn a choreographed dance no matter how hard I try. This is inexplicable to some people because they’re like, omg but you know all these advanced words! Surely if you can’t drive a car, it’s just because you aren’t trying hard enough! Likewise I think it makes sense to write Sara with a spiky profile of her own, and have characters react to that accordingly.

Perceptions of maturity: AuDHD adults aren’t children. AuDHD teenagers aren’t children either. And yet part of ableism is the infantilization of AuDHD people. I don’t have a lot of huge narrative squicks, but this is one of them, and it’s rooted in frustrations I’ve had over people treating me like I’m still a child. I always write Sara as the age she’s intended to be in the fic. If I see fanfic scenes or headcanon scenarios where someone is treating Sara like she’s five, and that’s spun as positive or never questioned, it can make me really upset and it’s an immediate back button. This is something I would recommend writers be on the lookout for if they’re incorporating Sara into a scene. Maybe this one bullet point is spinning a little far into criticism of other folks, but I think if I could communicate one thing to other people writing Sara, this would be it.

Special interests/hyperfixations: The thing about special interests is that autistic people often turn to them to replenish their energy and get their nervous systems back to a state of equilibrium. (For instance, me writing this post right now about my blorbo Sara Eriksson is me engaging with a special interest to put my nervous system in a state of equilibrium and put energy back in my body.) Sara’s time spent with Rousseau isn’t just wonderful because she loves horses, it’s also something that’s probably helping her recharge after a complicated day of navigating social situations at Hillerska. This is why she panics at the thought of losing Rousseau. Now, there’s still issues here in that Rousseau isn’t actually Sara’s horse. And I do think many teenage and adult autistics with low support needs, like Sara, understand that they can’t engage with their special interests all the time. But in order to write and understand Sara, I have to understand that she’s counting on Rousseau and horses more generally as something that helps her self-regulate and stay grounded. (In Heart and Homeland I also added art as one of her hyperfixations, so she often draws to recharge and make sense of things.)

Alexithymia: Alexithymia is essentially a trait people can have where they struggle to read their own emotions. It’s pretty common in autistic people and other neurodivergent folk; I have a mild version of it. For me, tuning into my emotions is a bit like trying to figure out what song is playing on a staticy radio. I might have to wait and “mess with the dial” a bit before I can fully understand what I’m feeling in a given situation. The question “how are you?” is a bit of a nightmare for me sometimes. Because my alexithymia is mild, I usually can figure out what I’m feeling in time, but I still often need extra effort to discern the nuances. I tend to apply this trait to Sara when I write her, mostly because she seems to need to sit with her feelings to understand how they’re affecting her. This is most evident when she’s trying to figure out if she like-likes August, though it comes out in other ways, too. Sara might just need a lot of time to process her emotions. Even when she’s showing her emotions and in them, they might take a lot of time to leave her system, and she might not catch on to how they’re affecting her right away. In Heart and Homeland, part of the reason Sara keeps a diary in the first place is so she can sort through what she’s feeling.

Heightened empathy: There’s an old stereotype that autistic people don’t have any empathy. This is not true, and some autistics even have an excess of empathy. I would argue that Sara (at least the way I interpret and write her) is one of them. This may seem counterintutive to some, as I have seen people argue that she is insufficiently empathetic to Simon and/or Linda. I see it differently, however. In my own experience, having an excess of empathy doesn’t always mean that I come across as loving and sweet to the people in my life. Sometimes it can make it so you’re so full of feelings toward others that you can’t act. I often function clumsily in conflicts, and feel like I’m caught between different parties, especially if it’s a situation where everyone appears to be hurting. It’s enough to make me shut down and not do anything, or even side with the person who to everyone else is obviously wrong. Especially when I was a teenager, the answer about “who to side with” in a conflict wasn’t always clear to me. For instance, in college, I dated a girl who constantly belittled me and many of my friends, and I let her get away with it because I was sensitive to the ways she was genuinely hurting about life. I am not proud of it now, and I did break up with her eventually and made efforts to patch things up with my friends when I could, but it also took me two and a half years to get there. Thanks to life experience and therapy, I am now better at recognizing red flags and overriding my excess empathy to call people out on their shit when they need it. It took me time, though, and I can’t help reading a lot of that into Sara. In a way, I tend to think her hope that August will own up to his actions is born out of heightened empathy for both August and Simon. She pins her hopes on this solution because, in her mind, it meets Simon’s needs because the person who harmed him has come forward and is willing to be held accountable for his actions and it meets August’s needs because he can find relief in owning up to his shit and stop drowning in regret. Now, yes, Sara is absolutely misleading herself and ignoring crucial details of the situation because she’s in love, and she does misread what Simon actually needs in the situation. This is very typically teenage. At the same time, when I write her in fic, I see this as tied to an excess of empathy, and not a lack of it.

Inertia/Executive Functioning Struggles: Building on what was said above… some AuDHD people (like myself) can really struggle with making a plan and getting started on tasks, and the bigger the task, the bigger the struggle. “Tasks” is a word we usually apply to things like doing laundry, so we tend to think of executive functioning as an unemotional thing, but it can also apply to emotional stuff like, say, having a big conversation that needs to be had or breaking up with someone you know you need to. (Like I said above. Two and a half years with that shitty person in college!) In fact, I would say inertia can even make things harder with social/emotional stuff, because math homework is at least consistently math homework, but social/emotional situations can shift and become more complicated over time. At Hillerska, we see Sara get involved in ever-shifting social politics, and it takes things escalating to the field scene for her to take action at the end of S2. (In a more minor example, Sara taking a while to get ready in the parents’ weekend episode, and Linda rushing her out the door, is a great example of Sara being affected by inertia.)

Menstrual ick: Increasing numbers of studies show that people with uteruses who have ADHD, autism, or both are way more likely to have painful periods and PMDD. This is true for me—one of the biggest signs that my period is coming is that I am absolutely convinced everyone hates me. I don’t know how to apply this to Sara directly, but periods are part of life and if you happen to write about her dealing with menstrual nonsense, this might be something to keep in mind.

Sensory issues: A lot of people are aware of sensory issues for neurodivergents, and every neurodivergent experiences sensory issues differently, and not always in ways that are immediately apparent to neurotypicals. For me, I hate vacuums and car horns and bananas, but for my roommate, she hates any lights on after 7 PM and finds chocolate overwhelming. Sara doesn’t mention any particular sensory issues, but presumably she has some and masks her reactions, so uh… make up the ones that make sense to you, I guess. Or, don’t make them up, but maybe read about a bunch of different people’s experiences of sensory issues and work from there. External stuff like being tired, sick, or being on one’s period can heighten sensory issues, so think about vulnerability factors that might increase them for Sara.

Rejection sensitivity: Many people with ADHD feel rejection or criticism from others with a high level of intensity, even as physical pain. (Fun fact: PMS makes my rejection sensitivity even worse!) I don’t know if we see Sara feeling rejection sensitivity onscreen much in YR, but I can’t help but imagine she’s dealt with it in the past, based on the way she says she sometimes feels like the worst person in the world, when she’s talking to August in 2.3. If Sara’s had therapy (which I assume she’s had in some form because she knows breathing exercises) then maybe this is something she’s worked on coping strategies.

Accommodations in school: I don’t actually know how this works in Sweden specifically or at a school like Hillerska, but I’d love to hear how it works! Someone else should weigh in if they know things. But I would not be surprised if Sara has the legal right to certain accommodations in school such as extended time on tests, guided notes, etc. (Not being Swedish myself, I’m not sure what the equivalent to the Americans With Disabilities Act would be in Sweden.) One thing to note here is that Sara would get to decide herself whether she actually uses her accommodations or not. I would say, based on my observations of teenagers, is that some neurodivergent teenagers tend not to use their accommodations so they can avoid sticking out among their peers. This seems like it might be the case for Sara, since she wants to make friends at Hillerska and not stand out. The other thing she might encounter at Hillerska specifically is teachers who don’t want to meet those accommodations because they’re “old school” and, frankly, ableist. Accommodations are something one should take into account when writing Sara’s academic life, though.

Double empathy problem: This is something that the psych community is talking about more lately, and essentially the idea here is that neurotypicals communicate best with other neurotypicals whereas neurodivergents communicate best with other neurodivergents. That doesn’t mean both groups can’t communicate with one another (and even reducing it to two groups is kind of oversimplifying things, because obviously culture and other things impact communication too) but there are different patterns of communication at work here. In my own life, I vibe well with people whose neurotypes are similar to mine—this is exactly why @coruscantrhapsody and I are such iconic roommates. The Double Empathy Problen is theorized to have played a role in stereotypes about autistic people not having any empathy. (PS: I don’t actually think August has undiagnosed ADHD in canon, at least not according to the writers. Still, I think it would be pretty interesting to write him in fanfiction as someone who has a missed childhood diagnosis given the way he struggles with rejection sensitivity, impulsivity, and emotion regulation, and the way that the adderall addiction could be a form of self-medication that has gone awry. For that reason I think it’d be interesting to see a fic where the sargust relationship is viewed through the lens of the double empathy problem. Obviously not in a way where the ADHD excuses August’s harmful behaviors, but you know. An added layer of delicious nuance. Alternately, I know some folks like to headcanon Wille as autistic. Sara really clicking with autistic!Wille when they finally get a chance to talk is something I’d like to see!)

Neurodivergent community: As far as I can tell, Sara doesn’t really have neurodivergent community. This makes me sad, as someone who strongly benefits from friendships with other neurodivergent people. I would like her to have some in someone’s fic, please! Let me know if you write it.

That’s all for now… maybe I’ll add more in a future post.

For any other AuDHDers, do you have any elements of your personal experience that you incorporate into how you interpret or write Sara’s character? Feel free to reblog and add on, if you feel so inclined. (But also, no pressure.) Like I said, every ND person experiences this stuff differently, so someone else may have completely different experiences than me.