#its been nice because i have a bunch of art that is too big to share space with other stuff

[companionsofusall]

[id: traditional fanart of Rapunzel from Neverafter, ow scrapbooked onto a larger piece of paper.

Rapunzel is hanging from her hair, her knees bent so her feet are drawn up behind her, and her hair is pulled extremely taut at the scalp. She has her arms open wide, for a hug, and she is giving a closed mouth smile. Her eyes are wide, her pupils small, but her face is relaxed. Around her her hair surrounds her, some in waves, some twisted, some in braids. She is drawn almost monochrome- mostly black and white except for her hair and eyes, which are a pale pale yellow. There is a border of bright yellow paper. Behind that is black paper with gold strands, and behind that is another matching bright yellow border. End id]

Okay but ive been going OFF on my scrapbooking this evening. I found the perfect black page for my Rapunzel and I love it EVEN MORE now

[audreyscribes]

Ω PJO DEMIGOD HEADCANONS: ☀ APOLLO: God of Archery, Art, Music, & Poetry, Prophecy, Light & Sun, Healing & Plagues, Truth 🎶

author's note: I had a sudden idea about writing some headcanons Camp Halfblood demigods being claimed and what it's like for each respective god and cabin, followed by a small blurb afterwards. Thank you for reading and please like and reblog! The order is not in order of the cabin numbers. [PJO DEMIGOD HEADCANONS MASTERLIST]

When you get claimed, you're graced with a light haloing over you. It's so bright yet soft. You also feel warm but you somehow feel like its a warm hug and its Apollo secretly giving you a hug.

The Apollo cabin welcomes you happily and they all gather around, singing you a welcome song. Some of them break out into an Acapella, while some whip out their instruments out of thin air. You find yourself at least humming to the song and maybe even singing along, the words just coming to you naturally. 

 You’re shown the sleeping quarters that are nice and warm, and when you press your nose against them, you can smell the sun on them. 

You’re also shown the ropes of the place, but most importantly where they treat the sick and injured. As children of Apollo, your natural gifts are used almost daily. If you’re not that hyped about seeing blood or the like, you’re moved away from the rotation and help out with other things: changing sheets, disinfecting, checking stock and getting stock, and so forth. 

You’re still required to learn how to do First Aid though. Even if your godly parent is the god of Healing, you’re still going to have to learn how to do the mundane medical methods. Better learn how to do proper CPR just in case. Sure, you could heal any damages but it's better not let it happen anyway. 

You just have candy in your pockets. You might think its odd but when you see a small camper hurt their knee and one of your siblings whip out a lollipop after patching it up, you realise you’re not just there to soothe physical wounds. 

Plus, you have candy. What’s not to love?

Though, speaking of Candy, you didn’t know you had to help out in sorting candy and inspecting it. Especially any red candy or specific dyes used in them. You learn immediately that once ago, there was a period of time that the campers acted very intensely, and after an intense lava wall incident and an almost burnt down pegasus stall, it was discovered that some people had consumed certain candies containing Red dye 40 and was affecting the ADHD.

The Apollo cabin is the place to be for entertainment. There’s constantly music and art being produced. There are even beat poetry nights. 

So many rap battles. 

The Apollo cabin often has collaborative efforts with the Hephatesus Athena,Dionysus cabin. There’s always some big project happening and it’s always a treat.

Hamilition. Cats. Hadestown. Heathers. Highschool Musical- all the broadway shows and musicals you can think of, the Apollo cabin have it down pat. Along with the Dionysus cabin, you just perform and break out in song. Eventually Mr. D and Chiron let you guys perform actual broadway musicals or general theatre because there were too many impromptu moments that broke through the entire camp. No one has recovered from the D's (Mr. D, the Dionysus, and Demeter cabin) and the Giant Strawberry incident.

When you get claimed, light envelops you with a soft mysterious song playing. It was warm and you swore you could imagine arms hugging you lovingly. You’d imagine Apollo used the claim to at least give his children a hug. You hugged back and you felt the faintest squeeze back. Before you could dwell on it later, the light disappears leaving a faint glow on your skin. 

The song you had heard had also drifted off as well, but it had spoken to your soul. Like it had been chosen for you. You saw a bunch of other campers stand around and begin going into verse, a choir of campers singing a song before you realized it was the same song from before. More and more people began to join in, singing in acapella, instruments being played, and people clapping along for the beat. You watched in excitement and you felt their music resonate with you, it went through your body, up your throat and before you knew it, you were singing along, leading it. 

When the song came to an end, the singers cheered and clapped before you saw a boy with curly blonde hair step up, giving you a beaming smile. You thought he looked like a golden retriever. 

“Hi! You definitely have the chords of a child of Apollo” he complimented, holding out his hand. You took his hand as you shook, “My name is Will Solace, and I’m the cabin leader of Cabin 7. Welcome to the Apollo cabin!”

[meruz]

i hope this hasn't been asked before. what size do you make your canvas? and do you crop it to fit other socials (like Instagram for example)? i hear that 300 dpi is standard. i never know if it's good to make my canvas big or not.

hi i think this ask is like at least 4 months old but i was scanning my sketchbooks from last year and i abruptly remembered i had gotten this ask because i had made a little chart in my sketchbook trying to figure out how to answer it

anyways theres pros and cons. and the size of your canvas is really going to depend on personal needs + preference. how good ur computer is, how complicated ur art style, how comfortable drawing feels, how much disk space you have to spare, what youre gonna end up using the art for in the end...300dpi is standard for PRINTING specifically, if you only plan to ever post things online then 72dpi works great and will save you space (fun fact a lot of professional animation files i deal with are 72dpi. and those eventually go on your tv screen). but personally i make everything i draw 300dpi because i am always printing stuff for cons, zines, etc and its nice to have the option even if i dont end up printing.

when I was a teen I used to draw on a rly shitty laptop and i made everything 800x800px 300dpi because big canvases would cause a lot of lag and also the resolution on this laptop was pretty small so 800px was a lot of the screen already. now i have a slightly better laptop with a bigger resolution and i sketch on giant 10000px-40000px canvases with the hard round brush and no shape dynamics or transfer whatsoever to minimize lag. when it comes to making a final illustration when i know ill be using a bunch of layer effects/blending modes/colors/mixing brushes etc etc ill generally crop the canvas down to the 6000px range. most illustrations i try to make sure are comfortably printable on tabloid size paper so thats pretty much anything hovering around or above 3000x5000px w 300dpi (so 11x17in). HOPE THIS HELPS?

EDIT: OH ALSO re: socials. i always ALWAYS size down my art to post on the internet. i think its crazy when other artists dont. because why would i ever let the internet have my hi-res file for free. also in general i think it looks better if you do the resizing yourself because if you don't then many social media sites will compress your file for you! a lot of people will post a hi-res file to twitter and then go "Wow twitter killed the quality of this img!!!" UH YEAH because they have an automatic image compressor. because they need to save space too lol and they dont want your image to take 248263895 years to load. same with instagram and to a lesser extent tumblr. when i post anything on social media i resize it down to 1200px-1600px on the longest side... its a little arbitrary but im kind of basing it on the smallest resolution of widely available screens. mostly because i think it looks stupid when u open up an image file fullsize and u have to scroll to see the whole thing... also iirc instagram only takes images up to 1080px before it resizes them? granted if you upload something smaller than that itll also resize it up which will look worse so I think bumping the numbers just over 1080px is pretty safe.

I should really be bringing the dpi down to 72 too when i post online but often im too lazy to do that. but it will technically help ur image load faster and stuff. and make it less likely for people to yoink it off the web and print it themselves.

[trungles]

Processing Process, and More Processing

I made this post free and publicly readable on Patreon, but I'm reposting the whole thing right here too because, well, it's a free post, and I don't want to make you click away from your dashboard if you don't need to. But also if you want to support my work, here's the link to the post.

It's a little bit about cartooning, a little bit about drawing, and then it turns into a eulogy for a chicken.

I wrote “process” more than once, and now the word looks funny and is beginning to lose its meaning to me.

This post is about a few things, and it’s a little bit on the sad end of things. Nothing dire! No worries. There’s just a little mention of death, just as a heads up.

Before we get to that, though, I’ve been doing some work and had some thoughts.

I’m often asked about how I draw the noodle hair on my characters, and the answer is typically that I draw each and every line with my hand. But there are considerations of movement and volume that go into it beyond its texturally decorative purposes. I love being able to convey shape and motion with it. It’s less evident, I think, in my illustration work, but I think it’s much more obvious when I do sequential work. In the above image, you can see me working out a sequence of Angelica having a series of thoughts. Her head sort of moves, and her eyes follow. You can see I’d planned out the general shape of the hair and how I’d like it to move.

I wound up moving the drawings a little bit so that the readers eyes will actually follow the character’s eyes as it moves gently rightward on the page. The hair is there to accentuate the movement, like so:

It’s a consideration I employ in all my drawings, but especially when I’m drawing hair and fabric. I don’t use a lot of action lines, so this becomes an important way to give the reader the information that someone is moving through a space. Resistance, gravity, and motion are all things I have to keep in the back of my head when I’m doing these little drawings. I think the planning actually takes more time than the inking, which can happen pretty quickly once I map it all out.

In other news, I’m starting to take my extracurricular artistic development a little more seriously in the silliest way possible.

You wouldn’t know it, but I studied painting college—a medium I switched to after the printmaking professor and head of the Art Department at the time told me I probably shouldn’t be an artist (he gave me a hard candy for my trouble). I recently bought a bunch of little dolls, dressed them up, and am returning to my painting roots. It feels really nice to work in big blobs of color instead of lines. It’s an exercise I came up with in response to a common lament from art students.

One of the more aggravating generational tensions described to me by art school students is when professors describe a student’s portfolio as “too anime” without much explanation. I know what the professor means. They’re trying to get at how referencing your favorite anime or cartoons means that your style becomes a simulacrum, an imperfect copy of a copy, and you never learn to develop your own sense of judgment about where a line or a shape needs to go. And we can tell. It’s a way of working that is perfectly fine for cartooning because cartooning is closer to hand-writing than it is to drawing. I always turn to Charles Schulz’s work for an example. Those figures aren’t literally depicting children—with their little chessboard-pawn proportions and bread-loaf feet—but we read them as endearing children because we’ve come to a consensus between us, the readers, and Charles Schulz, the author, that those shapes mean those things. There are no whiskers or paws in the shape of the word “CAT” but you look at those three letters together, and you know the thing to which it refers. That’s an aspect of cartooning, too. Of course, what elevates it from mere writing is, in part, due to the fact that those little figures do not lose their meaning the more you depict them.

To really draw well, though, you have to do those fundamentals. You have to draw from life. There’s no way around it. It helps you develop a stronger sense of where you like to lay down your lines and shapes, no matter how stylized you like to work. It grows your judgment, and every artist’s best tool is their own well-honed sense of artistic discernment about their own work.

But that doesn’t mean you have to surrender the stuff you like or the things that inspire you to make art! I tell students that if they want to hold fast to their anime style AND hone their fundamentals to develop their eye as an artist, they should buy little figurines and toys of their favorite characters, prop those up against a light source, and draw them as still life objects. Like, yes, do the vases and the figure drawings and all those, I still think those are important. But if this is what you need to keep you interested in drawing from life, having some toys around is a great way to do it! Also, bless those sculptors and toy designers. They’re the best.

I think there’s something to be said about remembering to imagine the physicality of the things we draw, in all its dimensions and in the way it catches the light or casts a shadow. It helps sentimentalize things, too. Makes them feel more real, even emotionally.

Edwina died on Tuesday night, after a few final snuggles, surrounded by her favorite treats. She was about five years old, which is old for a chicken, and she had a very comfortable life. We buried her this morning. She was a good hen, J’s personal favorite.

It really feels like the end of an era. She was the last surviving member of our very first flock. After the other hens died, she really seemed to prefer the company of people over other hens. She is survived by Snooki and Nelly, our two other young birds who get along quite well together, actually.

A baby chick costs between three and five American dollars, typically. An egg-laying hen could be between twenty and fifty bucks, depending on the breed. There are roughly 26 billion chickens living in the world today, about 518 million of them here in the United States. They come pretty cheap. And a part of me was moved to cynicism, entertaining the thought that it might be strange to feel sadly over a little animal that, at most, might be roughly equivalent to the price of a fancy lunch and a coffee.

I watched the 1974 musical version of The Little Prince recently, and I remember it mostly because Bob Fosse was in it and scared the crap out of me as a kid—he played the snake that would take the Little Prince back into the sky when his body gets too heavy to take with him. Gene Wilder plays the Fox whom the Little Prince befriends and tames among a garden of roses. The Fox explains that he is like any other fox in the world, but he is changed—made special and particular to the Little Prince—with time, effort, and patience. So, too, is the Prince’s little flower special to him. Out of all the flowers in the universe, she was the one he watered and protected under a little glass jar. And that’s enough.

I knew my little hen would not live that long. It could be very easy to take a broad view of the life expectancy of a hen and distance myself from it by virtue of its mortality and its commonness. People who raise livestock do it all the time. But I also think it’s wonderful that we should all be capable of loving very small, very brief little things. Edwina is not, to my mind, the rough equivalent of a fancy lunch and a coffee. She was our little hen. For her whole life, she was ours. And I’m so happy she was here.

[kedikatzen]

Do you have advice on how to draw characters with different body types and faces like you do? Me and my sister have been amazed with you art style since your first comic and its a big insperation to us

Tons, and I honestly need to just make a video on it x'D But I'll do my best to make something cohesive here, while keeping it quick. I'm also definitely not the expert, I'm just somebody trying to learn as I go and trying to constantly improve.

I bring this up first because this is something of a bad habit I've noticed a lot of people slip into - I've slipped into it myself, and had to make a conscious effort to get out of it. When it comes to bad habits in art, I try to point them out and cut them out, because it'll be harder to steer away from doing it once you've made it a go-to.

You really want to strive to create bodies that are similar "weights" or "builds" while also still looking different. Some people are top heavy and some are bottom heavy. Some people are skinny and other people are lean, they're different. A good way to practice in a way that builds better habits would be to draw a bunch of bodies in a certain weight or form category that still look different.

When it comes to those little things that set your characters apart, you want to strive to keep those unique to them as well, and while this is nice:

it might be relying too heavily on the little details to set characters apart. All your characters wearing different coloured t-shirts doesn't change that, at the end of the day, they're all wearing t-shirts. Try to break things down to the bare bones, and make sure they're still distinguishable and unique to them.

That said, don't become so fixated on making each and every person so perfectly unique that it stunts you. Some characters will have the same bodies, some characters will have similar faces, etc. Aesthetic still plays a role in overall bigger pictures, characters should be cohesive with each other if they're all in the same world, etc.

The single best thing I think you can do as an artist is go out and draw real people. Draw shapes, draw quick sketches, draw structures, draw what you see. There's so much variety and beauty out in the world, it's the best place to find inspiration and practice for your work. I used to sit in cafes or at parks or even bus stops and just draw shapes I saw, very basic shapes and gestures but it got me out of my comfort zone and helped me see more variety.

[gamesception]

Sception Reads Cass Cain #36

Batgirl (2000) #16 - July 2001 Writer: Puckett Pencils: Scott Inks: Campanella Colors: Wright

Another solo one shot, another resonant and memorable stand alone story that Cass fans from back in the day will remember clearly. Got a bit more time to work with, gonna try and pull some more images this time, because the art in this one is just really good. Honestly, this issue is peak early days Batgirl - the kind of story she was literally made to tell, and it's really well executed. If I had to pick a single issue of Cass's entire Batgirl run as sort of a 'this is what she's all about' encapsulation for someone completely new to Cass and her book, this would be on the short list. If you've never read her ongoing before, i strongly recommend you actually read the issue for yourself before the summary here.

The issue opens on a bunch of kids playing a mean game where they throw a rat in the air and get points if it lands in a circle they drew on the ground. The nerd in my has to point out that it's kind of unrealistic. Rats aren't quite as fall resistant as, say, cats, but while they could be hurt or maybe even killed by a fall from only as high as a grade school kid could throw them, most are going to scamper away and none are going to land so badly that they splatter like a water balloon.

Anyway, it's gross and its cruel but also kind of cute as the kids argue about the rules and 'nuh uh' each other, and Scott draws their faces really expressively, and the whole scene starts with a rat silhouetted in front of the moon mid toss in an image that's as aesthetically compelling as it is disturbing in context before plummeting back down

I could talk about how Cass is flying high through the city as Batgirl while her mental state is hurtling towards a painful crash, but that's probably reading too much into it.

Anyway, after the first splat there's this kind of cool sequence where the next kid throws the rat up and they all run back and look down at the circle...

Only the rat never comes down, and when they look up like 'where did it go?' there's Cass

The image of Cass swooping down from above with the kids all looking up is pretty cool, and the way the panels create a pacing for the scene is really good. Effective storytelling through sequential art.

Cass drops down, and the kids scatter. Not a situation that needs any more intervention then that, and we get a nice panel showing just her hands and feet as she crouches down to gently let the rat go. A pretty standard inverse kick-the-dog moment to establish Cass as the good guy by having her be nice to an animal, but for those who have been reading along from the first issues of her book it also reminds us of how Bruce once praised her for being 'gentle', and how despite everything that's happened that part of her is still in there.

As the other kids scatter, one stays behind to kick off the main plot for the issue. I like how awkward Cass is here, towering over this kid when she's used to being around allies and enemies taller than herself, not knowing how to talk to him.

Also, I haven't talked about it in a bit, but I just really love the way Scott draws Cass as Batgirl? Her proportions with her big head emphasizing her youth. The way you can make out her expressions despite the full face mask - and the way he gives her the same expressions that he gives Bruce. Her prominent jaw line making her feel tough and defiant and stubborn. The way you can make out her expression through the mask, the sleek lines of how her cape drapes from her neck to the point shoulders and then down, or the way the cape flows when he draws her in motion, all with an oil-slick feel that likely owes as much to Campanella's inking as to Scott's pencil work.

There are aspects of how others draw Cass in her batgirl suit that I like - most recently I love how Leonardo Romero draws the pointy ears on her cowl in the recent Birds of Prey run, it gives Cass a retro feel that really fits his vintage newspaper comic aesthetic. But Scott's version of Cass-as-Batgirl is always how I'll see the character in my mind.

The kid, Tim, takes Cass back to his home, a messy apartment with a mattress just dropped on the floor. You can feel the poverty, and start to form an image of this kid's dad in your head as, like, a decent man pushed into crime by desperation to provide for his kid.

An impression that Tim then explicitly reinforces.

The scene cuts to the bank mid robbery, and we meet someone who seems to fit the mold - Jake. The way Scott draws Jake's expressions, you can tell he doesn't want to be there, and when asked what he's going to do with the money they steal, he just says he's going to pay some bills. But when a security guard surprises them, Jake is startled and shoots him, almost by accident....

The boss, Chaco, compliments Jake on the kill, rubbing in how this isn't a guy who would normally do something like that with the 'didn't think you had it in you' line, and as they walk away you can see how horrified Jake is at what he's done.

In contrast, Chaco shows just how comfortable he is with killing by shooting one of his own guys point blank when he realizes the guy was stealing traceable jewelry from the vault, the way the panel suddenly goes red, and Chaco's calm expression just the panel before, emphasizing how sharp and sudden the violence is.

Chaco's a professional. Ruthless and dispassionate, about the job, about killing, even with his allies. He clearly didn't even feel any malice towards the guy he shot - he was downright friendly with all of his crew, even Jake, just a few panels ago, and that friendliness was probably even genuine. But this guy became a liability, and Chaco doesn't have any time or pity for liabilities.

It's around this time that they notice Jake is missing. More liabilities.

A couple of the crew find Jake in an alley, overwhelmed by guilt over killing that security guard, and again, I just have to say, the art in this issue is really good. The perspective in that first panel looking down, with the shadows stretching forward guns first, the expressions on Jake and the guy who has a gun drawn on him, the detail on the background cobblestones & brickwork. All really good.

Anyway, this is when Cass shows up, in terrifying shadow form, knocking out the two goons with the guns in as many panels.

Cass sees Jake, like us assumes he's Tim's dad, and takes pity on him. For Tim's sake.

But Jake is overwhelmed by guilt.

Guilt is one thing Cass understands.

Tim wanted Cass to stop his dad before he did something bad, something he wouldn't be able to forgive himself for, something Tim wouldn't be able to forgive him for. But Cass was too late. Once again, she's failed.

Only, Tim isn't Jake's son.

He's Chaco's son.

Chaco the remorseless killer. Chaco who can be friendly one moment and commit murder the next. Cass wasn't too late to stop Tim's dad from doing something bad, Tim's dad had been bad the whole time.

And bad dads are also something Cass understands.

I need to take a step out of the story for a moment here though to talk again about how Scott draws Cass, and in particular the bit about conveying her facial expressions through the mask. Scroll up a bit and look at the downcast resignation on her face when Jake says he has to pay for what he's done, then the surprise when he says he isn't Tim's father, and then the absolute fury here.

The expressions are so vivid, and carry so much of the load when it comes to conveying Cass's thoughts and emotions and personality.

Bringing back another old chestnut of this blog, Cass can speak now, and think in words and sentences, but there are no thought bubbles or narration blocks in the entire issue. The book just doesn't need them, not when Scott's Art is able to put everything going on in these characters heads right on their faces.

Cass lays into Chaco, stopping only when she realizes he's already unconscious, and you can feel the sharp snap of her attacks in how the panels are layed out.

Bringing back another old chestnut, the action panels are practically perfunctory. They're there, and they're good, but there's no back and forth, there's never any question of the bank robbers so much as landing a hit on Cass. Who will win in a physical fight was never where the story's tension was. It was all about the emotional stakes.

Tim arrives on scene just in time to see his dad carted off on a stretcher to the hospital, and as Cass takes him home he looks back, through the spikes on her gauntlet, as through through the prison bars that are going to separate him from his father for the rest of his life.

And the last page is this somber, heartbreaking moment of Cass trying to console Tim that just because his father is a bad person, doesn't mean he is too, and it's obvious that Cass is thinking about herself and David Cain here, but while I might be reading too much into the panel, the way Cass's shadow forms Bruce's symbol to me draws attention to the fact that Cass has two fathers, and just because one of them isn't a murderer doesn't mean he isn't also bad.

...

So yeah, this really is more or less the archetypal Cass Cain Batgirl (2000) issue. A somber, contemplative tone. Street level / no super-villains or over the top scenarios. A focus on the individual humanity of the minor characters, including criminals who would be faceless mooks in any other bat book. Story and characterization conveyed through expressive artwork and deliberate panel use rather than blunt narration, taking advantage of the specific strengths of the comic medium. Violence and action scenes sharp, short and snappy rather than heavily drawn out, with the main conflict grounded in personal and emotional stakes. Narrative themes - guilt, parenthood - that tie directly back to Cassandra's core themes, history, and character motivations. All concisely contained within a single issue episode that works as a stand alone story.

Although there might be a bit too much emphasis on the stand alone part. Sometimes Cass's stories do come back to be referenced again later, we'll have an example of that next week, but we never see Tim again, we never see Cass following up or checking on him which is kind of a shame.

[tomatoart]

mwah your art is good and nice :>

can I ask for some advice? no worries if u don't want to answer.

do you have any tips on how exactly to practice art? everytime I ask for art advice everyone always says "practice" but idk what to practice first! do you have any strategies for learning how to draw something? do you do excercises? and if so how do they work?and are there any beginner mistakes I should look out for and change specifically?

thank you so much!! have a wonderful week :>

thank you so much! im ok w answering! i dont want to speak as if i am an expert on how to draw things in general as i am learning as well and definitely am not completely learned, so i might not be the best person to ask since im not very professional w my art as I do it as a hobby (and I can only speak on mostly digital cartoon matters) but i reallly hope to try and help u out even a lil ! im really happy that you’re eager to draw :] I wish you so much luck muwah muwah

i also hated when ppl told me “just practice” and i dont wanna inflict tht on u EITHER LOL but also thats just what i ended up doing for awhile but i tried to find some things to help ^_^

tips for practice: My number one rule is that practices should be challenging but still fun, I know it can get frustrating trying to redraw a pose over and over trying to get it perfect. And over time it rlly is all about muscle memory, the longer you draw the more your eyes will pick out specific shapes in everyday life and convert them into its own vision of them! or at least its good to look at life that way, try to pin point key shapes and stress less on details in practices. after you look at key points, THEN you can go over what you have and draw in and over it to make it more “complete.” To stop practices from getting too stressful I recommend starting out drawing what you want a little more simple looking than ur desired finished product. This helps eliminate the pressure of everything not looking “perfect” and keeps your art more loose and fun. Doing this a few times is gonna get ur brain to recognize patterns in art and how things look/flow in anatomy and such. dont get stuck in ur own head abt perfecting everything to the point you either 1) give up bc ur not at a level capable of it being 100% “perfect” or 2) focus so much on making it perfect that you end up saying the work looks “wonky” or stale in dynamics, So while I do think studies help, don’t get too lost in them. I always practice with media I enjoy too, whether it’s characters or fashion I enjoy.

Strategies learning to draw something: people get mad abt this one but I think tracing reference photos is great. its been awhile but When I tried learning to draw hands better at first I would trace them then put the traced image to the side of the canvas, then try and replicate what my mind saw as its most important angles and aspects. Same for clothing folds/hair/etc! I think it’s maybe not the best idea to trace the ref and use the tracings as is, because you learn more from tracing it then trying to replicate and simplify what u learned into the style you’re working in. Find what shapes you like from them and don’t over detail it. you may have to go by eye and think “what parts of this ref photo should i simplify to fit my style” and for me, its usually adjusting the length of the torso and then the limbs by associations. i dont recommend feeling like u need a reference for every art you make though, its ok to let ur own head try out its own sometimes too while trying to learn this, see if it remembers any call bad from the past referenced sketches! over time ull remember where everything goes more, these days i rarely kick myself to use refs but im sure they still would help to use, but figure drawing simple blobby figure in a bunch of random poses was a big thing i used to do as well to get better at full body art + overall dynamics (still does this). also paying attention to silhouettes is great 

Exercises and how they work: I WANNA HELP U SO BAD BUT to be honest, all the works on my blog ARE exercises! i rarely actually do finished pieces, if u scroll thru my posts ull notice most r sketches. i usually just fill up a page and call it “warm ups” then i get attached to some of them, take a few, and just line them up pleasingly on a smaller page, then color them in (or sometimes fix the lines to be more clean too). im not rlly a person who “exercises” to practice, it more so happens from just me drawing a lot for fun as a hobby! but i really should. i will tell u this has humbled me a lil i need to start practicing too 😭 LOL but a good exercise is to look at what ur inspirations do, and study it. Make a collage and write out what you like most abt their styles/what u want to gain from them. For ref Here’s a page I did awhile ago when someone asked me abt my insps:

i also look at fashion magazines and as well as anime figures and take insps from that sometimes with learning cool poses and compositions to convert into my own things

Beginner mistakes to look out for: its hard for me to pin point “mistakes” beginners make, as sometimes we cant avoid all of them or even notice them, progress comes from growing out of old ways. some mistakes are even the foundation of ur future amazing cool style! but i think some things to look out for could be these, from my own old art experiences

Hands were the first thing I learned bc i liked drawing them. I don’t know if that is the best way to go but I think it is smart to practice sooner than later, here is a lil guide thingggyyy wingyyy from awhle ago

i see beginners shy away from drawing signs of age in people, sometimes adding too much detail on an older person in cartoon art makes it look weird, so i try and hit the key markings on ppls faces of age.

Too thin of lines. sometimes its a stylistic choice to use thin lineart, and it can look amazing ! but sometimes it can flatten an image if ur not familiar with its flow. im not saying use thick line art, but more so to keep in mind the weight of ur strokes, adding depth with a thick thin combo of line art can do SO much for the simplest of pieces. heres a visual from a while back when i talked abt my brush + more abt lines:

but if ur desired style is thin lineart that is cool too! tbh it was just harder for me as a beginner

sometimes artists think they need to do full lineart for everything and then hate how it looks compared to the sketch, do not fear i will introduce u to my bff: painting over a sketch, extractinging the lines, then calling it line art. i only do this sometimes but its a fun exercise-ish thing to do in a pinch. example:

finding what shading fits ur art. sometimes ill see ppl starting out who have a style thats very simple, but they use a very detailed rendering process on it. this is not something id ever police of course, art is each persons own choice! And it CAN work. It can be so cute! but sometimes mixing two very contrasting mediums of art can throw off the “put together” look of it. i use to abuse the airbrush tool thinking it made my simple style look super cool and detailed, but looking back on it now those pieces looked a little off, having such a simple style have somewhat more realistic shading. dont get me wrong the ability i see ppl use rendering like that is so insanely talented! but i found cellshading to be a good match for cartoony art like my own. a tip i learned way too late abt that is rather than shading each layer by color picking a darker color, instead use a clipping mask over the entire art (above line art too as I color my lineart) and lasso tool the areas u want shaded + fill it w a saturated purple then set to multiply + lower opacity. also, sometimes coloring can come out chalky looking when u meant for it to be smooth and transitional, i think this comes from overshading and overlighting pieces without reason. pay attention to where the light source is, and focus on making the shaded and lighter areas nice shapes that cover the necessary areas, then u can add additional shading to the smaller details of what should have a casted shadow/light  

its good to spice up ur art now rather than later, focusing making ur art pop more w backgrounds will help ur coloring skills look better too! i dont mean detailed huge backgrounds, a small lil color pallet and design rather than a blank white bg. like this will make u feel better abt it or at least it helped me *sweats* yeah:

beginners tend to draw blank faces like “:)” but I think a good thing to do is try and get silly with expressions early on. It’s okay if the mouth hangs off the face cartoonishly with joy or shock, it’s ok if the eyebrows are super high in surprise.

tracing and pasting it as is (already said this but I’ve seen ppl do it a lot with hair styles and it makes it look alienated from the rest of the style) (final fantasy fans found critically injured) n if need a ref for a pose, using a real humans anatomy as-is doesn’t look quite right on a cartoonyish drawing. Shortening torso and legs usually comes out of this for me!

flip ur canvas i promise u it’ll be less embarrassing over time!

using guidelines for perspective and foreshortening is GREAT. Do it stylistically rather than realistically to add some groove to it...yay. Having silly perspective in art can make it look like a 10 so easily opposed to a normal front facing sketch. Look at cool poses from fashion magazines! Don’t be scared to draw something you don’t feel confident in conveying perfectly, this is why progress redraws exist :)

Drawing the hairline b4 u draw the hair is great, it helps u understand where their hair flows from, where it starts and stops, AND prepares u for drawing bald ppl. Also don’t make the head too big, the skull IS bigger up top, but sometimes I see an alien head affect.

Anatomy is an interesting mistake that beginners make a lot, but it’s one they find harder to notice! When I started out, all my art would be SO wonky, but I didn’t even realize it! It still happens today too! specifically though I see beginners struggle with the arms in this department. My advice is to try and measure them out and make sure they don’t go past the knees, and are the same length as each other when Unfolded. asking for criticism is hard but it helped me realize when i would make something bigger/longer than it should have been in my art, and stuck with me being able to go “oh... i see it LOL” 

clothing wrinkles- do not over do it! Too many wrinkles and shading can look unpleasant and wirey- like a plastic table cloth all bunched up which isn’t exactly what ppl wear. pay attention to gravity too

I hope this helped even a lil im sorry tht I’m not very good at explaining or didn’t have much to sayyy! If u have any troubles no guarantee I’ll have the answer, but ur always free to ask!

[miloscat]

[Review] Antonball Deluxe (NS)

Wario meets Arkanoid meets Punch Ball Mario Bros.!

Having wrapped up my Wario Land fest, I picked this out of my backlog due to it taking some inspiration from the big goof. Summitsphere had previously published Annalynn, which models itself on arcade classics of the early 80s, and this likewise remixes ideas from retro games both popular and niche. Their next game is actually a direct Wario Land homage, but it's not out yet!

Antonball started as a pair of Game Boy homebrews made in just a few days: one a mashup of brick breaking platforming, and the other an expansion on Hudson's Punch Ball Mario Bros., which is itself a neat little remix of Mario Bros. but with a ball projectile. Antonball Deluxe fleshes both of these out, and adds a head-to-head brick-breaking Pong-esque multiplayer mode reminiscent of one of the faux-retro games in the underrated Game Center CX 3. All in all it's a nice package.

The Wario inspiration comes in the design of the main character Anton and the general tone, as well as a shoulder-barge attack that can be used in mid-air. You can also do a high-jump that looks a bit like the backflip in Donkey Kong 94 (you see, this game is very citational!). In the primary game mode, you use your moves to platform around the single-screen stages in order to body block the bouncing ball and break all the bricks. Sometimes there are enemies or hazards to avoid, and powerups to claim. There are 30 stages but I wasn't able to finish them all, as it gets super hard and it's all too easy to let balls slip past you.

I had a better time with the Punch Ball mode, whose story focuses on Anton's coworker Annie. Annie was specifically added as an equal but feminine counterpart to Anton's Wario-like depravity and goblin charisma, something the Wario series itself has always lacked. There are actually a bunch of unlockable characters, by the way, that you can freely use in any mode including the Waluigi-esque Danton, versions of Anton in different art styles, Anton's dog and Annie's cat, guests from other indie games, and—my favourite—the punny "Ant on Ball". It's an ant on a ball.

Punch Ball by its nature is less twitchy and more about carefully manoeuvring and stunning enemies with the ball so you can knock them out, with a variety of foes with different behaviours, some even interacting with the ball in interesting ways. Some clever level design gives you another 30 stages of fun in a quite different format, even though it uses the same movement engine and controls. The Switch version I played also comes bundled with what was DLC on PC, with two extra joke characters and level packs based on the original Game Boy homebrews.

Silly designs and jokey art permeate this collection, and the interstitial cutscenes add a lot of character to this wacky little world and its denizens. Full disclosure, the illustration and some cutscene art was done by my friend Cameron Reigle (hire him! commission him!), but even if I didn't know him I would be in love with the art in this game, from the goofy cutscenes to the moody backgrounds to the chunky pixel art. It's actually a shame for me that the sequel is going in a slightly different direction artistically, because the look of Antonball is so much fun (there's a grid filter on by default, but it looked better to me when I turned it off)!

I'm impressed by how Antonball was able to hone in on specific mechanics from retro games and remix them in such fun ways. It comes together really well in this package, even if I think the progression in the Antonball mode could have been a bit more merciful. I couldn't engage much with Vs. mode on my own, but I have no complaints for Punch Ball mode, it's great. Actually speaking of multiplayer, both of the solo modes can be tackled in simultaneous co-op with up to four players, which is nice. What else can I say? Check it out!

[witchhatproductions]

Witch Hat News #4 - Lessons from the Archives

by Tata Calthrop

This is an archived version of our microfiction newsletter! You can read along on our tumblr, or subscribe here.

Which archive, you may ask? Well, it's quite simple.

Our own one.

Yes, like many twenty-somethings in the creative field now, I was forged in a rather specific fire – the classic Internet pipeline of Neopets, Deviantart, Tumblr, Twitter, usually interspaced at some point with either a gender crisis or a formal diagnosis of mental illness.

You see, for a young nerdy preteen in 2010, you have two sexy choices made available to you, neither of which you will perceive until it's too late. You will choose either the path of solitude (voraciously consuming and creating content in incredible loneliness and feeling like the only person in the world who does so), or the path of the internet, where you will learn at an incredibly young age how to receive and handle a death threat. I was raised on a raw, unfiltered diet of fandom. (Sonic the Hedgehog. The world has not been kind to me.)

The fans and the hermits have a lot to teach each other. In fact, as easy as it is to make fun of – well – most people on the internet, there is something valuable to be learned from every subculture of creativity, including the horny ones. 

So let me make a confession to you: I'm a fanfiction writer. I have a shameful record of 155,821 words, none of which will ever give me a scrap of credibility with anyone, including other fanfiction writers. (Heavy is the head that wears the dunce hat of Adventure/Comedy.) Hell, I've spent over a year picking away at a fancomic project. For zero dollars and no publication accolades, I have written at least five full completed novellas, which will never be published, be recognised, or prove anything except my big, fat crush on the uncle from Encanto.

My god, was it freeing.

The social pressure to monetize your art is insane. I took my first art commission before I even had my first bank account. It was my teenage dream: to be paid is to obtain credibility. The label will hang over your head like an execution hood: PROFESSIONAL. Of course, the loop never really stops; start making money and suddenly your eyes are open to how many opportunities you're missing, and how little you make compared to others, and how wide the chasm is between you and full-time creation. 

(That's not to say the money and recognition aren't nice! That part I do recommend.)

But making fan content, and making friends who also make fan content, and building up a small audience of people who just want to be there for fun is incredibly liberating when you're not used to it. Get a bunch of friends who create together, join a community that makes its own memes and creates a bubble of mutual feedback and appreciation, and you start to realise: this is how they made the old tales, the oral ones before the printing press.

Here's two lessons from the archives.

Love characters. Fall in love with their vulnerable moments, their jokes, their relationship dynamics, the little unseen parts of them that you can never put in a real story because there's simply no point. Linger on the details. Develop a little crush. Project all your issues and obsess over nothing. Love your own characters, and you'll find suddenly that creating art about them changes from a chore to an act of affection. Learn what makes you fall in love with other stories, and look for the same aspects in your own.

Making art to impress a large audience will disappoint you; making art to impress a social circle of about ten interested people is how life is supposed to be lived. The early humans who painted mammoths on cave walls had no audience except themselves.

Here's a quote I like, from Prof. Henry Jenkins, Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts at University of Southern California: "Contemporary Web culture is the traditional folk process working at lightning speed on a global scale. The difference is that our core myths now belong to corporations, rather than the folk.”

Here's another quote I like, from twitter user @FarfinFarfin: "the fastest way to improve your art is to become some sort of pervert, doesn't really matter what kind, whatever you're comfortable with". 

Reviews

The Northern Caves by @nostalgebraist. The Northern Caves is a cosmic horror story about unwary scholars who delved too deep into the ancient texts, except the scholars are a group of hardcore nerds on an early 2000s fan forum for a mediocre fantasy series, and the ancient texts are fan theories about the author's baffling final novel. I know almost nothing about original fiction on Archive of Our Own, but I recognise a wonderfully online scary story when I see one. Psychological, terrifying, and twistedly fascinating reading for anyone who's ever watched an online community implode.

Songs for Girls in Love by @phemiec. PhemieC was one of my favourite musicians as a teenager, and when I got into my first relationship I rushed into the familiar arms of their love songs. They also were making, at the time, Homestuck fansongs. But when I was 15, this music made more of an impact on me than any classic musician ever could. Songs for Girls In Love has a number of fansongs mixed in, largely for things I've never consumed, but you'd never know it from their lyrical subtlety and I'm still a huge fan. 

Digital Land Grab: Media corporations are stealing our cultural heritage. Can we take it back? By Henry Jenkins. Okay, okay, this one's not exactly micro or fiction of any sort. But it is the article that I quoted earlier, and Prof. Jenkins could be described as the grandfather of fanwork studies in academia. A good read about the history and creative validity of fanwork, and the ways in which corporations suppress it. I highly recommend it, even if you know nothing about fanfiction.

Your project here. Do you make art of any kind - visual, written, performed? Are you starting a project or recruiting co-creators? We want to hear from you! Email us at contact@witchhatproductions.com.

That's it for June. See you next month!

[zhnnveuxpasdrmir]

I really should have gone to sleep, but, I regret to inform you, the Fallout show is really fucking good. Ironic as hell to have it on the Vault Tec channel.

There are callouts and references from New Vegas and the Commonwealth. There's not exactly easter eggs, they're the bedrock of the plot. Fallout logic applies. Every conceit that has to explain why the nonsense of Fallout exists is an integral part of the story flow in the show. Better done than in FO4, tbh!

Familiarity with the games will for sure give you lots of background information on who's who and what they're doing. That was cool I thought. I couldn't help but wonder if any of the artists got any kind of remuneration at all for having their work copied down to the millimeter. They said that Bethesda was "in the room" on art direction and stuff but I don't know what that means, really. I stopped thinking of any of those companies as anything but little Vault Tecs themselves years ago.

On reddit people's complaints are all highly logical - fucking triflers. This is Fallout. "Why didn't they XYZ? How did the dwellers know about ABC?" if it made a whole bunch of sense it wouldn't be a Todd Howard story. But yeah visually thematically and textually it is Fallout, to a T. I'm actually annoyed at how fucking entertained I was. Todd Howard will be insufferable forever after this, and assume all his ideas are good. Psh.

random spoilery theories and observations:

That first ep was frustrating in that my Vault dwellers would've eaten those bullshit raiders up in seconds. Scars? Tattoos???? oh no no. Instant chunks. My vault is no-nonsense. If any of them had made it past that first security checkpoint, it would've just been to get gaussed into several pieces by Ethel or mowed down by Big Dave's minigun. Anyway.

I also kept wishing someone would scrap. Not fight: pick stuff up. It just kept occurring to me because everything was so exactly game-perfect in appearance. That's 2 Steel and an Adhesive, Lucy! cmon grab it for your backpack! Get that machete!!! free machete! 1 Copper in every bulb on that crate, move it into a safe container! until nobody turns red in your reticle! Get with it!

When Lucy talks Maximus into their alliance and they do the warrior's handshake, the Battle Hymn of the Republic played loud in the score out of nowhere, never to return in season 1. Is Max going to found the Minutemen? I don't really know the timeline well enough to know how that fits together - but it sure was emphatic.

The Ghoul is a crit banker! Ha! Lucy seems to have Chem Resistant, Maximus is climbing the Power Armor tree… nice. LOVED how other-Dogmeat used the right tactics on the Gulper, they have that same weakness in Far Harbor, sensitive lil arms, tag'em for instant stagger.

I was glad they held back on directly showing Deathclaws yet, but set up the promise of them for the future, giving exposition for those who didn't bother to read terminal entries on their playthroughs.

I was thinking that the Vault 31 mystery was going to reveal synths, but it went more to the plot lines that you find in the environmental storytelling - Vault Tec's nefarious technocratic scheme that you piece together from terminal entries on side quests. Interesting. Is the Enclave a BOS thing? I never played a fash character & I can't take orders so I don't know that quest tree too well.

I loved that all the armor pieces were game standards, made it super easy to figure out who was who in battle scenes. I would definitely be a Leather Right Shoulder guy. Some like the Sack Hood with Hoses / Metal Chest Piece thing; I get that. It works. Personally I would not go with the red eye shadow because everyone would assume I was a cannibal but you do you.

New Vegas is up next! There's no way this doesn't get its three seasons at least.

[meruz]

Lightbox Expo 2023 is over!! Thank you to everyone who stopped by the table. I can't believe I sold out of both my sketchbooks AND my digimon fanbook... (multiple prints too?!)! I'm incredibly grateful... I will have a 2nd print run of both sketchbooks and online orders for the digimon book up in the next couple weeks so please keep an eye out for that!

More gushing abt the weekend under the cut

I sell at an average of idk... 3-4 events a year? So I would consider myself a frequent congoer though not necessarily full time lol. I'm a little jaded like it's not that I don't enjoy going to cons but theres definitely a bunch that feel like just-another-con-weekend to me lol, sometimes it's more work than play I guess. But this con felt really different! For the first time in a while I left a convention feeling really thrilled and giddy that I had been there. The kind of feeling I used to get when I would table at anime cons in highschool! And I think a lot of that is the people I met and talked to and the overall vibes at the event. Oh also I literally just had surgery and going to this con is like the only thing ive done this week besides lay in bed and play Story of Seasons on the nintendo switch and I thought I would be in pain and miserable but actually I HAD SO MUCH FUN...!!!! even when i skipped after-hours socializing every night to go home early and sleep 12 hours lol. SO ANYWAYS. YEAH. IT'S CORNY. BUT I wanna say thank you again to everyone who stopped by the table. Especially all the coworkers and long time mutuals who I met in person for the first time this weekend!! And the long time followers who told me they have been following me since homestuck or naruto or whenever. And college classmates who I haven't seen since graduation, crazy talented underclassmen who I'd never met but stopped by to say hi... So many people who absolutely made my day. SPECIAL thank you to my table partner Emi who is the best and such a good sport and accommodating to the point that I feel ridiculous when she thanks me for anything. And um also thank you to the artists who were cool and nice when I went up to their tables and blurted out 24917596 compliments in rapid succession. or only got one really awkward compliment out to LMAO... I felt so inspired and awe struck by everyone's work! God it was just so cool to be there. I LOVE ART....

Ok yeah thats it. its been a while since ive written a post-con blog post so earnestly lol.. here's my obscene haul photo I was buying stuff at this con like I was dying and couldn't take it with me LMAO.

I'm not gonna go tag everyone because I don't think everyones on tumblr but if you dont mind doing a little google search legwork: big x-men prints from chase conley, prints from jacki li/bguavas, azusa tojo, xanthe bouma, nicodaboy, susan yung, hormstuck, nessa tweneboah, linda liu, ash tahilan, zines also from jason dwyer, ash tahilan, aprilyn cunanan, veggiecakeface, deb lee, dune5and, uhh yoichi nishikawa art book and parakid calendar, stickers again from ash, marie lum, hormstuck, chiou, and emi hartana/crowlets OKAY I THINK I COVERED EVERYTHING THANKS FOR READING

[m0e-ru]

👀👀 also i just want to say thank you! i really got into P4 this year and finding your work only amplified my love for it. mim became like my 2nd favorite character all because of you also the stage play it really lives in my head rent free. i love your art and writings, your work has turned a special interest into an even more special one.

hi yeah I read this morning I was tearing up a bit sorrry for being an emotional baby I dont get love letters often maybe thats why im full of love . in exchange. thank yo thankyou for all the nice words it means a lot. here’s A LOT in return. with commentary because it um. was too much for the tags

okay this one was one of the drafts for my 3/20 art this year there was like. four drafts till i settled on this one then went SIKE 🏌️🏌️🏌️ you're doing the dual type ones ( the magazine ones i ended up posting )

MIDNIGHT TV STATION REAL !??? anyway here’s just shadow yukiko and iznmi interaction it’s not finished since there’s no backgrounds yet I swear there are. I did this alll the way back in feb I think and just kept polishing it bit by bit throuhgout the year and it’s STILL not done yet. the horrors came in I couldnt work on bigger pieces anymore since they wouldnt even get FINISHED anyway 💥💥💥 there’s also a s.kanji one but those are a bunch of blobs and text in shorthand mim is such a jokester asking questions n shit to twist people’s heads but yukiko’s just so sweet she really means what she says yknow like this is supposed to be the start of mim remembering what humanity is besides the mindless and selfish desires that technically gave birth to them after tearing them apart from the whole they once were. the LAST few TV stations these women were asking shit like ohhh can we hang a noose here ohhhhhhhh I want it to smell like liquor and rust and this girl was like can I have a castle !!!! can I wear a big pink frilly dress and hold a mic to push my human self’s buttons I think it could work

yeah these are my plans for the m.inaba arc for gsaslau and FUCK IM SO MAD I WAS WRITING ON THE TUMBLR EDITOR BUT IT FUCKED UP THE FORMATTING AND A WHOLE CHUNK OF TEXT IS GONE sorry this post is gonna be a lot longer than it should be okay ! gsaslau Magatsu Inaba arc. Adachi’s besties with the attendant but Mim decides they’re done with the attendant facade and erases everyone’s memories of the guy. They did a bad job at it though so Adachi’s stuck with the awareness that he has a hole in his life that could’ve been avoided if someone did a better job at cleaning up everything that reminds him of memories he’s going insane over thinking they exist when they DON’T to literally everyone else. He makes a deal with the fog to be god’s prohpet and usher in the New World as its Fool so it gives him the answer to whether or not his memories are real and worth bringing back a guy he thinks is dead. Souji tries to stop him and as much as Adachi’s trying to hide his true intentions under the guise he’s justifying himself as a bad guy this whole time, he kinda snaps under pressure that a bunch of kids are being able to stop him despite the help of a god and a world he can manipulate. Mim’s plan was to wait for his Shadow to take over so his body’s properties would be enough for him to become a vessel to manifest Ame-no-Sagiri. But THAT doesn’t happen so they did plan B: go force the power of Persona and wear it like a costume enough to hide their face to stop further awakening more memories that could throw the whole deal off. Souji recognizes that it isn’t the power of Persona so he demands god to stop using their powers through a human just to hide from something, it’s putting the guy in enough pain already. Mim agrees to leave and Adachi’s Shadow finally takes over anddd and yeah I could make a separate post about my writing I wish I had more time and energy for things

okay this one looks simple it’s likeee a manga that was supposed to be a companion piece to some writing that also didn’t get finished. so. I could share that but they’re non proofread discord messages but I promise the draft is there the context is that they’re in Okina and they try out the gacha machines. Mim’s genuinely having fun but they pull a teru teru bozu which um. remind them they’re supposed to dutiful god. like they look like a teru teru bozu. and that they’re supposed to treat this as an experiment to see humans’ true desires so they just shove it to Adachi who harmlessly relates it to them because it honestly looks stupid annd the whole tension dissipates.

here's also a bit of writing alll the way back in feb. i guess the context would be episode 13 and 14 where nanako leaves her loveline umbrella with the fox except this time she doesnt get wet since she had a pit stop at the gas station yaayy :mimyay:

The little girl left her umbrella by the torii with the fox as a gesture of her kind heart. Then she hugged the plastic bag in her arms and began to run straight home.

The rain was pouring hard! The summer wasn't as kind as her, nor would the crashing showers that would come after days of blazing heat.

Every step she took quickly became squickly and soggy as her shoes and socks were already soaked through. Her pigtails were getting heavy and her bangs almost covered her eyes. Just then, she heard a voice in the rain. But before she could look, she slipped forward.

"Ah!" Nanako gasped as she let go of the bag and braced for impact, but heard another "ah-h!" as she was quickly hoisted up with an arm wrapped around her chest, picking her up and felt another arm underneath support her. Her chin now on broad red shoulders that smelled faintly of car exhaust and gas amidst the rain.

The splashing of shoes on the wet pavement along with the crinkling sounds of a plastic bag was heard. Nanako was more worried of whose perfectly dry clothes she drenched with her sopping wet ones.

"You okay, little kiddo?" a familiar voice asked as she was gently set down on dry concrete away from the rain.

"I'm okay," she said, wiping her bangs and looking straight at the stranger in front of her.

It was Moel's gas station attendant, the one Souji works with. "Ah, you're big bro's big b--" she quickly shook her head, "I-I mean, big bro's senpai."

"Heh," the crouched man laughed weakly, it even seemed like he forced that smirk. "I work here too, y'know? Little customer."

"Oh, I'm sorry. And thank you, mister attendant."

"You're welcome, and don't worry about it. 'S not like I'm too mad about it."

An awkward air accompanied the scents of lingering exhaust from the last car and the petrichor from the rain. Although Nanako didn't feel any of this, just to say. It's always been like this with big bro’s senpai, at least how it's been with just Nanako herself. Like right now.

The man continued to crouch and adjust his hat. "Well, you're a silly girl. Why's someone with flowers all over her papers running around in the rain?"

Dunno how long, but I hope you haven't been running around like this for too long. I know you live nearby but your big bro's gonna have to take care of you if you get sick!--I mean, he'll always take care of you. He's a good kid.

If you were out long, I'm impressed how much of this you kept dry! …Just hoped you could've done the same for yourself, hehe.

Ah, but knowledge's different than wisdom, or whatever mister detective said. Hm, he even said I had neither! Maybe that's why I didn't know?

Uh…well….the fox by the shrine…. it was getting wet, so I…

Hm…

Heh, 'can see how you and that kiddo really are alike, little kiddo.

and SURPRISE !!! i found this lying around i thoughtt id add it here because youre so nice and it's so lovely to see you in my notifs all the time THIS IS A JUMPSCARE FOR EVERYONE ELSE sorrryyyy sorry

[adobe-outdesign]

What's your take on the living bath toy belibolt?

Bellibolt seems to be a love or hate it kind of Pokemon, and I'm... not big on it. I like the concept of a plasma ball frog, but the execution doesn't do much for me.

On the plus side, like I said, plasma balls are cool and not something Pokemon's really tapped into yet. The mention that its "croaking" is just its stomach making noise because it's hungry is a nice touch as well, and 'm also always a huge fan of false eyespots being used to confuse potential predators. Also, the name is great.

But on the minus side, I'm not a huge fan of Pokemon that don't have distinct anatomy (shapeless limbs, faces directly on bodies without defined heads, that kind of thing). I can still like them and this is kind of just a me thing to begin with, but it always sticks out to me when we a Pokemon that looks like a squishmallow like Bellibolt here.

I also don't care for the colors. First, orange and yellow are too similar to really justify them both being here; you could just go pure yellow and teal. And secondly, having the true face be yellow on blue looks... strange. You generally expect the face of something to be darker or the same color as the skin, so having it be lighter makes it very hard to read it as a face. The amount of highly-saturated colors also makes it distracting; my eye isn't sure if it wants to go to the plasma ball stomach or the true face or the false face. Here's a quick color edit:

This obviously doesn't fix all of the problems I have with it, but I think the darker black accents help the face read more as a face, and the focus stays on the stomach instead of being drawn away from it with a bunch of other bright colors. It's also higher contrast, as the grey belly and the teal skin are too similar on the actual art, making it look muddied.

Colors aside, conceptually it also seems to lack focus. The plasma ball and the fake face are two good ideas, but they're both fighting for attention on the design and would've been better as two separate concepts. Likewise, the random marks all over the body are strange. I get not wanting the back to be completely blank (plus the way it reflects the stomach is neat), but why have them on the sides of the body, or the head?

Also, side note: man, the modeling doesn't do Bellibolt any favors. The stomach should be transparent; black from the front because you're seeing the insides, clear from the sides. But instead, it's just all black. And the electricity looks like a 2D texture, rather than energy within the stomach.

So overall, I like the idea of this Pokemon a lot, and it has a lot of good things going for it. However, the final design has a messy palette and lacks a clear focus. At least it still looks fun to hug.

[anna-neko]

Scary Marlowe - cosplay breakdown post

how did the original post get 200+ O_o' ... wow ok... did say a long post would happen if it did, so here we go!

The ultimate joke: this Seeker of Darkness was supposed to be a "closet cosplay" Spoiler alert: no, it wasn't

rest of photos frm prev posts: [ post 1 ] [ post 2 ] [ post 3 ] [ post 4 ] [ post 5 ]

PS: hopefully this outfit ramble will be useful for anyone's attempts? ✺◟(＾∇＾)◞✺ yeah, everyone else plz cosplay these dorks too!! This nerd is desperate for others to photos with

Original plan: buy the Scorpion Slut shirt from the DnDaddies site, pair with whatever own, ??, Profit! oh right… Unisex sizes are a lie, not with my build. Not buying legit merch to have to disassemble & destroy (unless someone wants to buy it for me ... j/k)

No big deal, there's another still-easy-enuff second option. Lets look at the podcast official art*nods* right.. shirt with words on it, can manage this Went and bought a rando t-shirt size too big, cut off the long sleeves, started figuring out the words placement. Absolutely took too long getting the letters Exactly Right - in both duplicating the font AND spacing out the words (busty girls, ya know the pain of prints on tshirts)

Then had a minute when forgot how to letters, while trying to draw a nice "S" (resisted the urge to make the meme-S. My girl would not be that mainstream)

The "stencil" is on freezer paper, any white markings is just soap fun sewing trick: if don't wanna go buy specialty pencils or chalk - sliver from an old bar of soap works just as good!! Been doin this all my life.

Leave t-shirt for 24hr for paint to set (then its safe to wash)

Here's where things happen: personal headcanons for this chara start bleeding in Fanart exists and is frellin AWESOME

Headcanons bit first: Scary absolutely had to have PURPLE somewhere on her (because Warlock, patron 'pact' is a Purple Robe ..etc etc etc…) The t-shirt wasn't to be too badly damaged yet because wasn't sure if would find a full fishnet shirt to wear under it OR only like.. those cheap elbow-ish length arm-warmers. If a skirt was to be involved it hadda be plaid and match other shit in the outfit* She's also a former sports kid, which somehow overlapped in my head with her still owning like 'sport branded' clothes, and either cutting off or just like badly ripping out logos, this is why holes in a specific spot *Shut up brain, we aren't literally tryin to recreate what wore back in ancient days of 2003 with the shortest-sleeves tops and long-sleeved fishnet shirts under, it paired with plaid mini-skirts

blah blah saw a bunch of cool fanart, and it sat in the back of my mind, fermenting for a few days, adding to the mental image

Oh hey, my tshirt is dry now! Don't own a good skirt to use with this, lets go to the mall real quick This is where HT completely fails me by havin anythin plaid be themed with HarryPotter, and the only other skirts (that would fit me!) are tacky as fuck or in wrong print (am all about some cute Kuromi... but not today), also comeon… not spending 40bucks for something would literally wear once. Also apparently fishnet shirts aren't a thing right now???

Bought a skirt size 3X (aka too big) for $9.50 at some random place, purely because it happened to be the closest color/print was looking for.

this is where pause for a second to blast whatever factory made it Their own site photo is already bad, but damn accurate. Didn't bother matching the print at the sides? You bet! Not even pretending to care with the waistband match seam! That model is also like 20feet tall, i promise on me skirt was knee-length

but why not just go buy some fabric and the conglomerate monoculture has made sure no small local fabric stores exist! the only thing left is Amazon (aka buy online, fabric dot com is them) or go drive like an hour to closest Joanns for some quilting cotton and pray for the best....

So anyway! now i have "fabric", can arrange a skirt

At first was gonna slap some elastic inside the waistband nope, it bulks up too much, plus the skirt is too damn long on me!

K, imma just rip off the waistband and keep the zipper in side-seam and refold.... why are the pleats 'drifting' off so badly???

OH RIGHT THEY CUT THE PRINT WRONG, and here I was tryin for the easy way of eyeballing it: folding fabric by orienting to the vertical stripes printed on it

Now this is gettin personal! It is 2 in the freakin morning, and it's seam-ripper time. Everyone plz visualize this gremlin sittin on the floor, balancing an iron on her lap, ironing out the fabric to start over

Took apart everything, cut off a portion at the top (didn't wanna deal with rehemming entire bottom later, so shortening skirt goin up instead), do some damn MATH and start folding pleats with a ruler Not trusting fabric to drift yet again, baste every thing down, press everything remember kids, hips to waist difference exist! if you're doing pleats Do fold at slight angle, pin both top and bottom of pleat "closed" and try on. If your math is right it will fit both at waist and hips w/out twisting outta shape Also, if you're gonna do any sort of temporary stitching, use obnoxiously contrasting-color thread! You want it Very Visible for easier later removal

blah blah, trim the length off the waistband piece, sew everything together. Have a skirt now! Plain long-sleeved shirt goes under the black one. Now that shirt situation all sorted - took scissors to sleeves and whatnot. Fistful of safety pins to keep them together. Looks like my clothes are very red and black, so the PURPLE will need to be in hair

at this point we remember fanart exists... or more specifically @midnigtartist because I saw those space-buns and was like ... yes... fuck yes that's whats happening with my hair for the thing!

Also since she drew that check-pattern belt, and im here like hmmm, wasn't gonna have a belt but do have one in that exact colorway... Why not!

Was planning on wearing bike-shorts under the skirt - but this fanart does bring a good point - leggings! Dug up some tights didn't really care for, stuck a safety-pin on one side (to mark where front is, and it just kinda lives there now), cut them shorter (again, just drawing lines on 'em with soap while wearing them) and then (as per that silly holes headcanon) carefully sliced in some tears

Now its just down to lil bits and ends ... and HT failing me yet again because apparently ridiculous bracelets with studs is no longer a thing, they all about cutesy mushrooms, charms and... wannabe bondage garterbelts and chokers? dunno ... is this what kids r into now?

Dug around my room yet again for things to use. The braided-looking bracelets were a gift from a friend just weeks prior. He bought a bunch of those online & they didn't fit him. Plastic "tat" bracelet & choker set have owned for ...ahem... that 2003 mentioned earlier The wide leather cuff came from a RenFaire visit over a decade+ ago. The strip with the studs is a broken headband (wrapped around my wrist, held by safety-pin pilfered from friend's wallet)

cheap purple hairspray from SpiritHalloween (is a damn biohazard! holds up tho), and instead of buying black lipstick just smudged eyeshadow on lips

too many steps for an image wanted to get outta my system because of ONE EPISODE but there ya go. Cosplay just be like that! (getting Scary & Terry jr picture, worth it!)

if you've made it this far: THANX FOR READING! HAVE FEW SNAPS

[trenchcoatsbi]

heyooo! it's vale! i've been wanting to request this for a bit but haven't ever gotten around to it thanks to my nerves, but i'm feeling bold enough now so i'm sending it!

i was wondering if i might be able to request some art of me and my sons (tommy and wilbur)? if three characters is too much, just the two of them would be fine too obviously (/gen). prelude to this: it's gonna be a long ask because i'm gonna have to describe their appearances, and i'm so sorry about that. luckily i've already described myself in the past so i won't have to do that again haha!

my canon's tommy was an albino crow elytrian fledgeling; he had platinum blond hair with white feathers scattered throughout and small white wings— he was generally really pale, and his eyes were sort of a periwinkle color. he often wore this red poncho/shawl that came down to about his elbows and was embroidered around the hem with floral details, a white tanktop, and khaki cargo shorts. he also wore a jingle bell on a string around his wrist (the bells were a cultural thing for us). wilbur was a caramel crow elytrian; he lost his wings in death, but still had some light brown feathers scattered in his hair and small antler nubs. he had gold eyes and pale brown hair. he usually wore a mustard yellow button-down shirt under a navy blue peacoat, a pair of green-tinted sunglasses, and a wide-brimmed navy blue sunhat with a cornflower tucked into the ribbon around its brim. he also wore a jingle bell on a ribbon choker. important to note that my canon's wilbur also had a case of talipes ("clubfoot")— it was his left foot specifically, and he often used a carved wooden cane to assist him with mobility. both of them, like me, had bird legs and tails!

feel free to leave this in the inbox for as long as you need to, or just lmk if no one is up to taking it— definitely won't take offense/feel hurt, i get that it's a big ask! also sorry to like, dump a bunch of info about both of them. i miss 'em! anyways, thank you as always!! -🌾🪶

Heyy Vale. Sorry this took a hot sec but uh I had a moment trying to figure out what to draw. I eventually just started streaming me trying to figure this out to my friends and they did a lot of brainstorming with me until we landed on the boys goofing around during a family photo thing. There were more fun options but I think this one that I ended up on is nice. I like to think they got more formal nice photos earlier on in the hypothetical photo shoot and by this point were just joking around and not posing or anything anymore.

Anyway uh I like scribbling on top of printed photos so I added some lil things in the alt where I turned my usual border into a kinda frame thing? lmao idk I was just goofing around by that point. Hope you like these Vale! it was really fun trying to figure out how to draw your sons! They were also pretty fun to draw aside from me taking years to figure out colors. I really do not know what I'm doing with coloring and always just bully them into working together with overlay layers lmao -za

[krissiefox]

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog - Robotnikland (Screenshots & Review)

Coming into this one right after the Chaos Emerald mini-series was quite a treat! The episode begins with Scratch and Grounder attempting to do something nice for Robotnik, by making him a surprise breakfast of something other than his usual eggs. This does not go well as Robotnik is, well, a huge asshole about it. This scene actually feels a little sad with just how mean he is to them about making a different breakfast, but I promise that this episode has a lot of fun in store!

This is also where I'd like to mention that this episode has a very different look and feel to its animation and even art! I checked the Sonic News Network wiki after watching it because I was curious if it was another outsourced episode, or maybe a really early one (since the video playlist I've been watching on YouTube doesn't seem to follow the original production or airing order of the show). Unfortunately, it had no info on who animated this one, but they did a really nice job and have some fun ways of drawing Robotnik and Sonic, in particular. One thing in particular that I like is how Sonic is drawn with extra-huge hair/quills and it looks pretty cute! He also looks a little taller than usual, possibly because of his hair.

One of Scratch’s better disguises. Most of his body is covered, and his big ol’ fur-suit head seems free of any seams or stitches! Anyway - back to the story - after he bullies his children, Robotnik looks in the morning newspaper and finds out that its Sonic's birthday. He decides he wants to give Sonic a "gift" as the scene then moves to show what Sonic and Tails are up to. Sonic is, honestly, being kind of a jerk at the start of this episode, too. He's disappointed because he feels like Tails is the only one who remembered his birthday, and rather rudely complains aloud about it, even as Tails has gotten a birthday chili dog for him. I can't help but imagine this hurt Tails' feelings as he is trying to do all he can to give Sonic a nice day. While Sonic and Tails are talking, Robotnik is at a nearby amusement park, using a mind control weapon to make everyone inside leave the area. Tails tells Sonic he has to go use "the little foxes room" (cute!) and while Sonic is alone, scratch arrives in an actually pretty good disguise for once, and gives Sonic an invitation to the theme park! Sonic thinks it is a gift from Tails, and excitedly hurries to the location.

This mask that Grounder is wearing is super creepy! It reminds me of SCP 035....thankfully it doesn’t seem to possess Grounder by him wearing it.

Unfortunately, it's a trap! Sonic is trapped inside, and here's the episode gets really zany and fun. It's pretty light on story from here on, but that's okay because what makes this episode stand out to me is that it felt like a free for all for the animators to put together action sequences in a bunch of wacky environments like a giant pinball machine, roller coasters, jungle safari rides, etc. Eventually, we see that Tails and a gang of friends have found an unblocked tunnel to get into the theme park. I'm not sure how they found on Sonic was here, but I'm glad they did! Among the crowd of friends are several familiar faces, such as one of the beach bunnies from the last episode, Professor Caninestein, and Miss Possum! Robotnik tricks Tails and friends into getting onto a roller coaster, which is heading right for a lava flow. They shouldn't have anything to worry about, as we saw last episode that lava seems harmless in this show - nonetheless, Sonic is able to save his friends and send Robotnik and his badniks on a fun-house ride of his own. This is one of the best parts of the episodes as it follows the villains as they run through a wacky, spooky, surreal fun-house of horrors! With the baddies out of the way, Tails and the others present Sonic with a big cake as the episode wraps up.

I love the way they animated Sonic’s “nervous sweating”. Reminds me of Explodey the Dog from Stimpy’s cartoon show...

Some great Robotnik faces in this episode!  😄

They drew Miss Possum’s tail coming out of her butt!!

Once the villains get sent into the “Haunted Ride”, there’s several homages to the classic Fleischer cartoon “ Bimbo's Initiation ”

In the Sonic says segment, Scratch and Grounder catch themselves on fire while making eggs for Robotnik. Sonic is kind enough to put them out, and warns both them and the audience that they should have supervision while cooking. This advice is probably good for kids at-least, but I almost think its better that I DO cook alone, because sometimes my food gets really smokey and I don't want my family to have to deal with all that biz.

As I said before, this episode is a lot of fun!  There's zany action sequences a plenty, and the haunted house run through is especially cool. Scratch and Grounder are pretty adorable  in this one, and the art style has a nice charm to it that I enjoyed. Definitely a winner!

Til next time, be good people, be safe and be kind!