Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.
Fun Fact
Kazakhstan’s Minister of Communications and Informatics has blocked the Tumblr site because it contained 60 sites of terrorism, extremism, and pornography in 2015.
drawings from paleo expedition to dagestan, done right on the trip. sometimes messy when it was cold and rainy, but i won't correct it. i think it's cool to leave it just the way it was done, and not retouch it after.
there will be more drawings later, but those will be done from home
I think 90% of my gripes with how modern anime looks comes down to flat color design/palettes.
Non-cohesive, washed-out color palettes can destroy lineart quality. I see this all the time when comparing an anime's lineart/layout to its colored/post-processed final product and it's heartbreaking. Compare this pre-color vs. final frame from Dungeon Meshi's OP.
So much sharpness and detail and weight gets washed out and flattened by 'meh' color design. I LOVE the flow and thickness and shadows in the fabrics on the left. The white against pastel really brings it out. Check out all the detail in their hair, the highlights in Rin's, the different hues to denote hair color, the blue tint in the clothes' shadows, and how all of that just gets... lost. It works, but it's not particularly good and does a disservice to the line-artist.
I'm using Dungeon Meshi as an example not because it's bad, I'm just especially disappointed because this is Studio Trigger we're talking about. The character animation is fantastic, but the color design is usually much more exciting. We're not seeing Trigger at their full potential, so I'm focusing on them.
Here's a very quick and messy color correct. Not meant to be taken seriously, just to provide comparison to see why colors can feel "washed out." Top is edit, bottom is original.
You can really see how desaturated and "white fluorescent lighting" the original color palettes are.
[Remember: the easiest way to make your colors more lively is to choose a warm or cool tint. From there, you can play around with bringing out complementary colors for a cohesive palette (I warmed Marcille's skintone and hair but made sure to bring out her deep blue clothes). Avoid using too many blend mode layers; hand-picking colors will really help you build your innate color sense and find a color style. Try using saturated colors in unexpected places! If you're coloring a night scene, try using deep blues or greens or magentas. You see these deep colors used all the time in older anime because they couldn't rely on a lightness scale to make colors darker, they had to use darker paints with specific hues. Don't overthink it, simpler is better!]
Shockingly, it turns out Danny knows how to cook. He's good at it, even, and when Tucker expresses his disbelief at the practiced way Danny moves in the kitchen Danny snorts.
“You know what the Fenton kitchen was like. When I got out of there and had access to food and kitchens that weren't biohazards, I learned eventually. I have a very distinct appreciation for good food nowadays, and I like being able to make it myself.”
He puts music on through a little Bluetooth speaker on the counter, invites them to participate, and they cook.
It's fun. They dance, they drink, they sample ingredients as they put their pizzas together. There's a minor flour war that sets off rounds of giggling and shrieking - more importantly it makes Danny cackle in a way she used to love and hasn't gotten to hear since they were teens.
It's exactly the same, and she missed it. Pure impish delight and mischief.
For as many things that are the same, there are ones that have changed.
Danny has a grace to him now that he didn't used to, and he moves near silently. He sways easily and elegantly to the music without thinking about it as they talk and make mischief with each other.
The oven and the adjusted thermostat make it much more comfortable in the apartment after a while, but Danny doesn't shed the pullover sweater he wears at any point. He didn't even roll the sleeves up to cook.
Come to think of it, when they entered high school he started doing that too. He wore long sleeves even in the summer - Sam tries not to think about abusive households or self harm. She hopes it's not that, but…
She puts the thoughts aside as well as she can.
Tucker had mentioned it before to her, but with all the grinning and laughing tonight Sam can see that he was right and Danny's teeth are sharper than she remembers. All four canine teeth are almost startlingly pointy.
She doesn't mention it. What she does mention is the apartment.
“This is a really nice place, Danny. You got a secret sugar daddy you haven't told us about?”
Tucker gapes at her and smacks her arm. Danny bluescreens for a moment before he snorts an ugly laugh and descends into near hysterics.
“Oh my God! Ancients, no! No, no sugar daddy. Just a well paying engineering gig lately, and some money I saved up before I left Amity. Holy shit, Sam.”
She shrugs, some tension she didn't know she was carrying leaving her shoulders. “Had to ask. Would have had a shovel talk to deliver.”
Danny starts laughing again, and Tucker groans and puts his head in his hands.
“I cannot believe you actually just asked him that,” Tucker moans.
“I can,” Danny responds with a chipper grin, Tucker's answering snort overlaid by the ding of the oven timer.
Danny knocks back the rest of his drink and waves in the vague direction of the living room area.
“I'll take this out and cut it. Go sit and we can eat it around the coffee table in case we want to watch a movie or something?”
The sitting area is spacious and comfortable, couches black leather. There's a heavy, fluffy white throw over the back of one that looks soft as all get out, but she and Tuck quickly decide to settle on the floor.
The coffee table is low enough that it's more convenient for reaching food and drinks set on it.
Tucker whistles appreciatively at the TV, so it must be a cutting edge new model. Fucking nerd.
Danny trots over not long after with two serving boards balanced precariously on one arm, his refilled sangria in one hand, the pitcher of sangria in the other and another beer held against his side by an awkward elbow.
Tucker and Sam both shoot to their feet to try and mitigate a disaster, but miraculously it all makes it to the table unharmed.
“It's almost like you guys don't trust me,” Danny pouts, his grin ruining it. “Careful, it's hot.”
“You are a perpetual accident waiting to happen,” Sam tells him scathingly, and he snorts with a peculiar look on his face.
“You don't know the half of it.”
As they all reach for slices of pizza, Danny takes them by surprise by taking a piece of Sam's, not Tucker's.
Tucker gapes at him. “Dude. Tell me you haven't betrayed me like that.”
Danny snorts, shoulders shaking with quiet chuckles. “Nah, I still eat meat. It's just sometimes I have spells where it kind of bothers me and I feel a little sick about it? I'm in one of those lately, but usually I'm still a huge burger and steak guy. Don't worry.”
“Huh. That's weird.”
Danny shrugs, taking a bite of his pizza despite his own warnings and cringing when it burns his mouth.
“Been like that since high school, actually. Used to be worse then,” he mumbles through his attempts to cool a mouthful of molten cheese.
Sam doesn't remember him ever having issues with it in middle school. She wonders what happened to change his outlook, but puts it aside. They're here to hang out and catch up. Have a good time. Not interrogate Danny.
They end up spending hours watching trashy TV and heckling the screen, making small talk and letting each other in on bits of their lives all the while. Everyone's well on their way to tipsy by the time they're done eating, though Danny a little more than Sam and Tuck.
He's loose-limbed and happy, sprawled across both of them in the haphazard pile they've ended up in. He seems incredibly content, and it does Sam's heart good to see him so relaxed.
She and Tucker are sitting with their backs against the couch, Danny's legs slung across Tucker's lap and head in Sam's. It's probably why he notices her shiver a little - it's still a little chilly in the apartment.
Lazily, he points up at the back of the couch. “You can pull that down and cover us if you want. It's really warm.”
Sam offers him a quiet thanks and reaches up to do just that, though she's startled to find that though the top is fluffy, the underside of what she'd thought was a throw is velvety and smooth. Like hide.
It's a real fur - hopefully ethically sourced. Decorated too, there are ornaments threaded into the corners and dangling that she can't pin the origin of. They're very pretty, shells and claws and beads.
As she pulls it down, she flips the edge up to peek at the underside and is startled to find the skin a distinct, familiar ectoplasmic green.
“Um. Danny. What kind of fur is this…?”
“Yeti,” Danny replies offhandedly, sipping his drink before freezing like the question and his own answer just caught up to him. “Uh.”
Danny as Fenton takes a hit that no human boy should survive while in a different city (im going crossover here) and just transforms into phantom and pretends to be all sad that he died. Just for a moment. He then proceeds to kick the baddies ass. Claims he got ghost powers and fucks off. Imagine if Captain America or Batman saw this while failing ti protect him, hell or any hero type. Danny doesn’t think much on it and just goes on with his week. Continues being Fenton of course but what if he runs into whatever hero, but out if costume, saw him do that.
“How are you here? And alive?”
Danny holding a smoothie:”uhhhh I made a miraculous recovery”
He just shrugs it off and goes about his day. It isn’t until he finally gets some sleep later that night that he wakes up in a cold sweat realising he now knows their secret identity. “Oh well it’s neat I guess” starts to go back to sleep only to bolt back up “oh god now they know my secret identity”
Meanwhile said hero is too busy trying to figure out how to help this random kid to even be worried about the fact that they outed themselves. Someone else probably points it out to them and has to explain it twice before it gets thru.