#i'm a bit obsessed with drawing her side profile like i had to make a conscious decision to Not be a side view

[koddlet]

you're the one holding the knife (cover for my shauna playlist)

[tophattrio]

TOP HAT TRIO ARCHIVES: Part 1

Warden: Look at all this lovely art of us! We could fill a museum! Professor: There's so much it seems like we can't keep up... Once-ler: ..... Y'kno what guys? I'm gonna take a break...

((A small fraction of my old old old trio art, most of which has never seen the light of tumblr (under the cut)! None of this is colored. Some of this is pre-blog or just... REALLY early-era Trio art, so some of it is... dated. Also, as indicated by the top, this is part 1. Meaning there will probably be more, LOL...))

((I hope it's okay if I ramble some fun facts in the middle of this!))

We're gonna start off with this silly lil doodle of the lads! This was drawn during the era where I did my silly crossover drawings, before I mustered the courage to turn them into an askblog.

Based on the date, I must've drawn this next one while I was in the process of actually making the blog... potentially their original "profile" images? Or just a doodle I did to get me hyped...

As you can see, all the drawings so far are pencil and ink... that's because (if I remember correctly) this is when I was VERY new to computer tablets! I felt more confident in my traditional art so I would slap quick colors onto the back of a bunch of ink-drawn replies and make minor adjustments with the tablet. I remember being hesitant to switch to a fully digital style since I felt the sketchiness was almost part of the style of trio? But I've come to accept change is good! Everything post-Greed M!A is all (or mostly) digitally lined (with the occasional trad sketch), but if you look closely at the trio in this (and many other) early-day responses, you can definitely see the pencil marks!

Unposted Thneedville High Trio!!! I was SO obsessed with the Once-ler Askblog AU's back in the Once-ler Fandom's hayday... they were a lot of fun to observe on the side and I wanted to be part of that in my small way, but unfortunately, I was a coward so I never did LOL... I'm thinking this was drawn in February or March 2013...

And, something I drew on the same page, Truffula Flu Trio!!!! I think I briefly thought about making it (and thneedville high) a sideblog but I felt like I couldn't commit for multiple reasons: (1) AU hype was dying down a little, (2) It was a bit too serious a concept for Trio; I wanted to keep them lighthearted and silly (covers bad end with a hand). And (3) I was still doubting whether or not my blog counted as a Once-ler blog (being only 1/3 once-ler) and whether I was valid to participate in events. Eventually I got over that fear when I joined Camp Weehawken and participated in the fandom revival of 2015, but the fear was definitely there at the very beginning and I hesitated to jump in on some stuff because of it!!

These were some of my earliest (unanswered) asks! I think for a while I thought I accidentally deleted the Pinkie Pie one, but it mysteriously came back one day?? I don't plan to finish these but might as well get some closure since I already drew them. I had to look up which troll typing was the one being used here so I might be wrong, I know nothing about homestuck except chapter 1 and 2 and whatever I osmosis from my mutuals LOL...

Peacock was drawn before I knew anything about Skullgirls...... within the past few years I recently watched her gameplay/storyline! She's defs a fun character. Trio are probs neutral about her. I'm not confident enough to do anything major with her, but I would love to cameo her more!

I got a few asks / M!A's about genderbent versions of the trio back in early 2013 and these were my doodles for that. The designs were based off of different designs floating around tumblr at the time that I liked. I'm not interested in doing this M!A anymore, but the dresses are cute!

Some glasses shenanigans I never posted for some reason?? (For reference: (1) (2) (3) (4).) It's silly stuff like this that make me realize Trio!Professor is a little bit like "Cheerful Mystery" Professor but like... waaaaay more tame HAHA (I never read the manga back then because I was upset they made Layton OOC, but from what I've seen he's... a lot more chaotic there). Which, ykno, good chance explains why Trio!Professor stays sane around Once-ler and Warden and their wacky selves.

Some wardlers and layclaires!! Also a few super old things I doodled out for Lovestruck M!A part 2 (including warden being a perv and oncie being flustered and confused, LMAO) but... idk if I have the energy to commit to it at the moment... partially bc thinking about getting an influx of shippy-type asks gets me overwhelmed and idk if I can commit to another magic anon all my magic anons manage to kill the blog somehow 😭, but ykno... saving the anons in my inbox in case I change my mind... Love these guys dearly regardless,,, <3

Some doodles of Layton and his rivals!! I think someone sent a small "Descole takes over the blog" M!A (hence the itty bitty chibi head LMAOO) but (again) I don't have the energy to commit to anything but vanilla THT right now. I still thought the idea was fun enough to draw out and anticipate in advance! If I change my mind y'all will know about it...

My first drawing of Wilson from Don't Starve!! I didn't even play Don't Starve at the time, but I wanted to do research if I was going to properly execute the magic anon and I fell in love with him immediately. Unfortunately he (and his game) became my new brainrot and I still feel really bad about that LAUGHS, but hey! Was worth it! Maybe someday I'll redo trio mods for DST...

I may have him cameo again, but potentially after his character update in Don't Starve Together eventually drops, of course, :3 chants give us lore lore loRE LORE-

Aaaaaand that's all I'm gonna show for now... until next time everyone!

PART 1 (you are here!) || PART 2 (TBA) || PART 3 (TBA) || …

[growingstronglikeahighgardenrose]

I haven't found anything this season that matches how utterly obsessed I was with The Highgarden Holiday last year. Do you have any other details or headcanons that didn't make it into that fic? Where and how are Sansa and Willas celebrating Christmas this year? :)

Thank you, I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I put in most things I wanted, though I did rewrite and delete a lot of things. I do have some things I decided not to put in, or couldn't fit in, and did have some future headcanons :)

Things I didn't put in:

- Originally I had another flashback meeting planned between Sansa and Willas. It would be when Willas was in King's Landing and went out to have dinner with Margaery. She got drunk and he brought her back so she could sleep it off, but Sansa would have broken up with Harry that night. So after Margaery was dumped in her bed he and Sansa would talk about why she was crying, and she'd say she believed herself to be a burden to any partner. Willas, having just had his ill-fated date, would understand. But instead I let them bond about their experiences in real time instead of in the past.

- More info about Oberyn and Willas being disastrous friends together. They have a lot more fun stories to share. I had some more stories about them.

- More of Leo's backstory. To her the Tyrells really are heaven and she sees them as a substitute family she really wants to be a part of.

- A Willas pov about the stargazing night: Willas absolutely planned on making a move on Sansa the evening they were stargazing. But when she started drawing back at the end, he hesitated and lost his courage. I really wanted to save Willas' pov for when it was most powerful.

- Ned. I think Ned would honestly be a very present caring dad, but I just couldn't fit it in the story.

- Edmure and Willas bonding on the day he and Sansa arrived at Winterfell in the epilogue. I was afraid it would stretch the story too much. Edmure and Willas have a very similar profile. They both feel they disappoint their parents, one through partying and not having the right character, the other by his accident. They both had very odd careers and a wild partylife for sons of lords, which they both decided to leave behind for a more domestic life as actual managers of their estates. Although Edmure would definitely still try and encourage Willas to go to some parties with him.

- Sansa is very good friends with Jeyne and Mia in my head, but they didn't feature in this story. I wrote a couple of videocalls but they fell flat, I gave the important bits to Arya and Margaery.

- Sansa showing off her knowledge of politics. But it dragged on the story

- A flashback on Sansa and Joffrey, but I decided to keep the flashbacks Willas/Sansa only

- The rumble and tumble Sansa and Willas had in the stables after returning from horseback riding. It was written but I decided it felt better to leave it open.

Things I planned in the future (I always imagine a "distant future" when writing fics):

- Sansa had an existential crisis during her internship. She's good at politics and did her job perfectly but it came at the price of her sanity. So just like Willas she had her future planned out and had it destroyed. Willas stood by her side as she figured out what to do with her life. She finds a job as a project co-ordinator for a heritage organisation in Oldtown, for which she has to use a lot of diplomatic skills when organizing and negotiating with other cultural organisations in the region. So she gets to use her degree for a job she can handle a lot better. It's also in Oldtown, so she and Willas move in together at his place in Oldtown after 8 months of being together

- Oberyn adoring Sansa and doing everything to make her blush, including inviting her and Willas for a foursome.

- They split up the holidays, spending Christmas at Winterfell and New Year's at the Tyrells. While there, Willas absolutely sneaks off with Gendry to give him and Arya those "pro racing tips".

- Willas slowly realizes that he denied himself quite a lot over the years without reason, like avoiding big crowds because he couldn't do what he used to anymore. He was making a big deal of everything in his head due to his perfectionism and internalized ableism, while his environment was totally chill with him being human. As he has more positive experiences with Sansa, he starts to become more comfortable with being vulnerable and just himself around others close to him. We won't see Willas in shorts anytime soon, but he'll start being fine using crutches, talking about it and just letting his leg rest for a bit.

- Loras and Renly marry a year and a week after the events of The Highgarden Holiday while Leonette and Garlan have a classic cheerful summer wedding in open air. Leonette pretends to do a bouquet toss but runs straight to Sansa and puts it directly into her hands. Willas and Sansa absolutely dance the night away, he won't deny himself dancing with Sansa when she's all dressed up and looking like a goddess.

- Willas and Sansa don't feel the need to marry very soon, as Sansa deserves some time to settle into a job and earn her own money before they plan a big expensive wedding. Nevertheless, Sansa has the puppy, the house and the ring before she turns thirty. And when he proposes, it's during the Christmas holidays with an elf on the shelf.

[agarthanguide]

i'm obsessed with klimt!jester and byzantine!molly, my gosh. what wonderful ideas you had for all of them! how long did it take you to settle on each inspiration, and what other ideas did you almost go with?

This is a fun question.  Here’s how it went (behind the cut because this got so very long)-

Caleb happened first, and without any intention of doing a whole set. I wanted to try to do Van Gogh’s coloring thing, and Caleb seemed like a really good target.  It was deeply fun.

Beau- Hey, I like this Caleb piece!  What if I do art stuff for all of the M9? I wanna try those long inky LIchtenstein lines!  And what could go wrong?  Surely this won’t extend to two months of extensive research and work!

Molly- As soon as I decided to draw Beau, I knew I wanted Molly to be some highly iconographic thing with glorioles and gold leaf and things.  I have a longstanding fascination with Catholic and Orthodox iconography and gosh do I love messing with gold leaf.  Early concepts included some Fra Angelico action (he does this thing where you texture the gold leaf to create patterns in the frame, which i find absolutely stunning.  This is also a Big Look in 17th Century Spanish polychrome sculpture, which I obviously couldn’t pastiche directly, but wanted to reference, if the opportunity came up)-

I also considered going a bit Russian.  Russian iconography has probably the most opportunities for adding layers of symbolism (it just occurred to me that I probably would have needed to find someone who understood cyrillic to make it work)-

In the end, I was paging through a book of decorative motifs and was reminded of the Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna, which are probably the most iconic of the form outside of the Hagia Sophia. I decided that I’d probably have lots of other opportunities to paint, and I wanted to try my hand at a realistic tile look.

Caduceus- I thought of Mucha straight away, but I really didn’t want to do it, because I had already seen it done several times, and I thought those other artists had done really well, and that the concept was a closed book.  The other big concept was Picasso’s Old Guitarist-

It’s got the lankiness and the stylization and I love the pose, but in the end I just really thought that Caduceus was more Art Nouveau than expressionist.  Also my brother was really voting against any pose that included a profile, because I had never drawn Cad in anything other than profile.  So that cinched it.

Jester- I never considered anything else but Klimt. I tried hard to think of something else, because my last two brain cells have just enough self awareness to know that Klimt is way, way above me in terms of pattern and texture and motif, and I was pretty sure it was gonna be too difficult for me.  It was, by the way.  I stopped long before I wanted to and didn’t include a lot of what I had dreamed of adding.

Matt- Following my fascination with iconography, I still wanted to do the heavily painted, loaded with symbolism and rich color portrait that Molly wasn’t.  I looked at artists like Ghirlandaio, Castagno, and Jan van Eyck (I never considered Da Vinci, his sensitivity is way outside my orbit), but in the end I kept coming back to Holbein, who really raises the bar on color choice and symbolism. I love that all his portraits seem to be set in plain or dark spaces, but are somehow glowing and mysterious. I didn’t have the guts to put in a deep, perspective-y background, but omg I wish- 

I mean I’m not a fucking wizard.  But holy shit look at that.  The notes and crap hanging off the wall all look like clues.  Like Sherlock Holmes would be able to write the whole life story of this guy.  It’s almost trompe l’oeil.

Yasha- First concept for Yasha was a Minoan fresco from Knossos-

If I was designing Yasha’s tribe, I think I’d go for a melange of Mongolian and Minoan, throwing in some Tibetan textile patterns.  I just think this looks so much like her, and also some other Minoan frescoes include insane levels of ritualized badassery, like Bull Leaping and young girls offering saffron to incarnate goddesses.  I just love it. In the end, I was worried that the relative clean-ness and simplicity of the lines in the Minoan style would make it look like I was giving Yasha short shrift.  This feels a little ridiculous to me now, but I had just come off three in a row that took more than ten hours. My next thought was the Book of Hours of Joanna of Castile.  The thought here was that some of the pages actually look like Yasha’s book of pressed flowers-

This felt like a totally winning direction to me.  As I researched illuminated books more, though, my concept started to broaden and get more stylized, and I just went with it.  I think it turned out okay.

Fjord- Fjord is handsome and iconic, so the ideas flowed easily for him.  The first and most obvious was a Fabio-era (read- 80s to early 90s) romance novel cover-

I didn’t go with it because the Tusk Love thing meant that a lot of other artists had tried it already, and many of them had done a damn fine job, and I didn’t think that I had anything to add. The next concept was David’s Napoleon-

Very solid concept, but two issues- 1. Most portraits of Napoleon are pretty standard, in the mold of, say, Holbein, which I had already done.  2. The horse portrait is awesome, but I think Fjord had only been on horses circumstantially.  I couldn’t picture him on a horse. He’s not iconically horsey, he’s iconically sailor-y.  I can’t confirm whether or not he had a moorbounde when I painted this, but I know I hadn’t seen any of those episodes, yet.  So. All of this dithering kept going until the DAY I STARTED PAINTING.  And suddenly pulp cover fell out. I love pulp art.  This is the second fandom I’ve done pulp art covers for.

Nott- Full credit to @essayofthoughts, who came up with the playing card thing right at the get go.  I wasn’t sold, though, and floated two other concepts. First was a Mughal Miniature-

The thing about these is that they are very often like little comics.  On one side of the painting, you can have the main character at a lake, picking daisies or being drowned or whatever, and then on the other side that same character can be picking pockets in a crowded bar.  There’s loads of opportunity for detail and symbols and fun stuff like that.  On the other hand- I’m not a goddam genius.  I could not have taken in the style and substance of Mughal storytelling and then just spit it out in a few short weeks and done it any justice. Nope, that concept was just too difficult and too far above me.My other concept was Millais’ Ophelia-

This one might have been amazing, but the second half of the 19th century was getting very crowded indeed, with Caleb, Caduceus, and Jester all having concepts from that era.  That and I wanted something more graphic artsy than painty to round out the series.  Beau was starting to feel like an outlier and I wanted to loop her in closer to the bunch, if you know what I mean.

Okay that was a lot, but I apparently had a lot to share.  I hope you found the unused concepts interesting, at least.  What would you have done, were you me? I would love to hear outtakes from alternative universes.