#its the perfectionist character designer in me

[purple-cray0ns]

Here comes the booyyyy I finally finished yipeeee

Edit: I moved the infodump to a reblog so its less cluttered heehee

[toughbunnyforever]

digi sketchbook dump <3

[dexaroth]

trying to use that one method of solving a problem by thinking of it as if you were explaining it to someone else to sorta force a new perspective on it and going crazier and madder each iteration until im so devoid of any mental capacity i just stare blankly into the dark of my drawing tablet and die of spontaneous combustion and rising from the ashes like an integer overflow time and time again for as long as theres a fuel to change the variables

[maythearo]

" Welcome back to Night Raven College's 'Ghostly Gossip'! The school's unofficial main online source for the latest news, articles and trending topics circulating around campus! "

" Your eyes don't deceive you. He really is real. And an actual monster too, not just a 'weird looking dog', as those funny human legends say... "

Navigation:

R. Rosehearts - T. Clover - C. Diamond - A. Trappola - D. Spade - L. Kingscholar - R. Bucchi - J. Howl - A. Ashengrotto - J. Leech - F. Leech - K. Al Asim - J. Viper - V. Schoenheit - R. Hunt - E. Felmier - I. Shroud - O. Shroud - M. Draconia - L. Vanrouge - S. Zigvolt - Silver

Messy design notes:

I have mixed feelings over his design. On one hand, the outfit itself looks cool... and on the other hand it turned out to be nothing like what I had envisioned in the beggining 😭 I wanted to stick with muted colors, in the vibes of that pic next to howleen's I guess, but it's like Ruggie's design had a mind of its own, and would always lean to more punk-looking no matter how hard I tried to avoid it, which don't get me wrong- punk style does fit him well, the problem is that I had it reserved for another character already, and I wanted to repeat themes as little as possible between entries of this project.. that just may be my perfectionist side speaking though, and there is no reason why I shouldn't post this version here for the time being! If I don't get tired of working on this series by the time I finish all the main cast's designs, then I suppose I could try to make an alternative version of Ruggie with a slightly different theme! I'd do the same with Jamil's entry since he is yet another character I have mixed feelings about the design lol

Aaaanyway, the mood for chupacabra Ruggie is grunge/thrifted fashion with diy details he would add to make his looks feel unique to him I think? The spikes on his skin, although he can partially control (?) them, still get stuck on cloth every now and then. Nearly all items of his closet are a bit torn from it, but he doesn't mind all that much. I got no particular designs for the pins and badges he wears, maybe except for the brazilian flag and the trans pin which I rlly wanted to include somewhere on his clothes whsdbdshewbdi

The chupacabra's appearance vary from place to place, but for this, I based his looks on how I personally grew up hearing and imagining this creature to be like! Baisically a fucked up looking dog, sometimes with spikes and scales on its body? Yeah 👍

And he remains the same personality-wise in the AU, pretty much! At the moment I can't think of many fun facts or character quirks for him, aside from how impossible it is to take a selfie with him, much to Cater's dismay. He swears he doesn't do it on purpose! The moment the camera clicks his body moves on its own to be out of frame. Ruggie's entire instagram (or whatever the monster high equivalent of that may be) account are either pictures of a moving blur or a vaguely distinguishable sillouette of him, taken from far away and zoomed in 10x

I think that's all I remembered to say? Here's a Ruggie core meme I found on reels as extra content lol

[rainbow-starlight]

Why is Help Wanted 2 Sun… Like That?

Okay, I’ve been putting off making this post until I felt like I had a better idea of what was going on, and now that I’ve watched at least part of a play-through and gone over the lines a whole bunch, I think I’m ready.

I’m gonna talk about my thoughts on Sun as a character as well as HW2 as a whole here, so it’ll be a bit long. Pop some popcorn or something.

Please keep in mind that this is all my personal opinion and you’re free to disagree with it! In fact, if you think I’m totally wrong, please tell me why. I love new perspectives!

SO! Let’s get right into it, shall we?

First things first: Help Wanted 2 Sun is not the same guy as Security Breach/Ruin Sun. If his personality difference was significant enough to surprise you, that’s because he’s a different person.

I’m not entirely sure how much of Help Wanted 2 is meant to be actually happening, but I think that at least the mini games are training simulations.

However, it’s important to note that a lot of the stuff happening in the mini games is just… nonsense. How did Freddy get frozen like that? What’s with those regular batteries in his arms? Why are half the supplies in first aid explicitly for robots and not humans? Why is there a shredder table in the daycare for kids to stick fingers into?

Some of this can be shrugged off with the usual “FazCo is meant to be comedically shitty and the tech often doesn’t make sense anyway,” but the first aid simulation is what really stood out to me. Even with the previous explanations, that doesn’t explain the calming gas mask that could only ever fit Helpy or the steel wool scrubber or the tank cleaner spray bottle among the medical supplies. If the goal is to train new first aid staff to avoid lawsuits, it’s doing a pretty poor job of it. So… what is it for?

I touched on this idea previously with my post about Sun’s AI being trained on kids’ artwork. The idea of FazCo making a silly new employee training game as a means of harvesting behavioral data to train their AIs seems very within their realm of scummy.

This is why the Arts & Crafts mini game exists. It’s literally a task that requires exact copying. Maybe it’s essentially like teaching an AI to solve captchas by feeding it a bunch of data on how humans solve them correctly and incorrectly.

Maybe its presence is explained to employees as fun practice with the VR system or a break activity during training or something.

This would explain several things about the game.

The existence of the shredder table and Sun shredding literally ALL of your artwork: It being a funny way to despawn the stuff you make is a lot more reasonable when that’s exactly what it’s for in-universe, too. The generators in the play structures are unsafe enough, but that would’ve been on another level if it were real.

Sun’s line “Be creative on your own time, we are making ART!” It literally isn’t a creative activity, it’s a task. I know you can’t really apply logic to a lot of FNAF stuff, especially the DCA’s design, but if Sun were actually this detail-oriented and perfectionistic with everything, he’d never be able to function in childcare.

The fact that Sun’s “fear” of the dark seems like a bit. It literally is a bit. There’s no threat, it’s not real. I originally thought he just wanted the player out of his space faster and didn’t know how to assert a boundary there, but I think it’s actually just to make the player finish the tasks faster for data collection purposes.

Possibly also why he’s so comfortable being casually rude to the player. He is a jester, after all, and the player has lots of opportunities to do things they shouldn’t, too. It’s basically all a bit.

Also… what if the minigames have versions of the base AIs in there? It’s a version of the Sun AI with the theater programming and the basics of the childcare stuff? His entire existence is a shitty little simulation where he runs a singular activity for grown adults who can’t (or won’t) follow very simple instructions.

The biggest thing that’s been bothering me about the takes I’ve seen regarding HW2 Sun’s personality is that people have been calling him “mean” while completely ignoring the circumstances he’s reacting to. If a coworker came into my personal space and I was so generous as to share my favorite activity with them and they proceeded to intentionally ignore the rules I set and EAT SUPPLIES I USE FOR WORK? Yeah, no, I’d react like that too.

There’s definitely something interesting about how genuinely excited and happy Sun sounds when first welcoming his new friend the player to the daycare and inviting them to Arts & Crafts vs. when they return. He seems like he WANTS to befriend the player, but the game just assumes you’ll be upsetting him so there’s no option for dialogue where you’re nice to him and respect his boundaries and participate in an activity with him in a way he’s comfortable with.

I say “in a way he’s comfortable with” because he is a little weird about the whole “sit right there and DON’T MOVE” thing. He does seem actually excited and enthusiastic about the idea of shooting darts at the items you want so he can get them for you, though. Maybe because he sees it as a happy compromise, or maybe because it’s supposed to be a fun part of the game he’s programmed to be in charge of.

I saw some other commentary on Sun (primarily thinking of @kazzykatt) talking about how he seems almost excessively self-sufficient, and how this could possibly be due to neglect (he and Moon definitely aren’t as well cared for as the other animatronics, the generators in the daycare are a very lazy fix for actually reprogramming Moon properly, he seems bitter that he can’t fix the carousel on his own and he and Moon don’t seem to trust the player to fix it, their design is clearly better suited to the stage but didn’t get changed for the daycare, I could go on and on), and this would also explain his control issues to an extent.

Sun, in SB and HW2, doesn’t leave the daycare. He has so little that he’s in control of in his own life. He used to be on stage (and based on his dialogue probably misses it quite a lot) but had the job he was built for taken from him. He’s a perfectionist that’s constantly overwhelmed by too many things being marked top priority in his system, working too many hours with too many small children. Of course he’d be desperate to hold onto any little bit of control he has.

Honestly, when I first heard his voice lines, the initial vibe I got wasn’t “wow they made Sun mean” but “wow Sun sounds actually miserable” and I’m kind of surprised more people didn’t pick up on that. He sounds less bitchy and more like he’s lashing out because he’s trapped in an awful situation that’s completely out of his hands.

“Wait, are you saying none of HW2’s characterization should be taken seriously?”

You might be asking that, but my answer is a resounding NO! This is definitely still a Sun, and I think seeing two different Suns (even if we don’t know how much of HW2’s personality we can assume is meant to be taken seriously) is really helpful for interpreting what the base Sun personality might have.

It’s also important to keep in mind that none of the Suns we’ve seen were in a good situation. Security Breach Sun had the virus, Ruin Sun had gone slightly mad from isolation, and HW2 Sun is stuck in a shitty simulation babysitting bored adult staff as they fail to complete simple tasks. What we mostly know about him is how he responds to stress, and this is why there’s so much room for interpretation!

Here’s some traits I think every version of the Sun AI would have.

Love of making things. Despite everything, HW2 Sun seems to genuinely love doing arts & crafts. Especially with googly eyes. This could kind of be assumed from SB Sun, but he was also trying to entertain/bribe a child.

On this note… interest in fixing things? Maybe he just wants to avoid having to rely on staff, but if he and Moon are subject to that much neglect, it makes sense that he’d try to learn to do repairs himself. I saw @pixelchills talking about the possibility that the S.T.A.F.F. Bots in the DCA’s room are not there because Moon broke them, but because Moon collected them for Sun to practice fixing. It seems feasible to me, especially since taking something apart and putting it back together might have the same calming and satisfying effect on Sun as completing something like a paint-by-numbers.

Playful insults and lots of drama. I don’t mean actual rudeness, I mean friendly teasing. Again, he is a jester. A lot of his HW2 insults come across more like this. Hell, even his compliments come across like this with the delivery and immediate shredding. He’s just a theater kid at heart.

Difficulty regulating emotions under pressure. This is the kind of thing that would pop up on his worst days (such as being trapped in his destroyed home with a poor connection to his badly damaged physical form while the only help he’s seen in ages ignores his instructions and puts their own safety at risk, or being trapped in a shitty simulation while his only company ignores his instructions and puts their own safety at risk). He’d have to be able to manage this sort of thing better to work well with children, but everyone’s got their bad days. He’s prone to outbursts and tantrums when he’s overwhelmed and unable to stop people from breaking the rules and/or hurting themselves.

People pleasing and nonconfrontational. Yes, HW2 Sun, too. SB Sun seems genuinely desperate to make sure Gregory’s having a good time, and HW2 Sun is shockingly tolerant of some of the player’s bullshit (ex. how he tries to laugh off them shooting darts at him/throwing things). Even calling the player “good friend” when he’s not so happy to see them or threatening them with Moon instead of just telling them their time is almost up seem like signs of this to me. And letting the player make arts and crafts in the ruined daycare in HW2? Yeah, that’s a people pleaser through and through. Sun needs a lesson in setting boundaries (and for those boundaries to actually be respected).

Perfectionistic + “if you want something done right, you’ve gotta do it yourself” attitude. This would mostly manifest in how he completes work tasks, but I think every Sun’s incredibly detail-oriented and would rather do everything themselves just to make sure it’s exactly how they want. This could manifest in lots of ways, from “insulting the staff for how they put things away and telling them to do it again while he supervises” to “politely thanking them for their help and complimenting their hard work only to redo everything himself the moment they’re gone.” I think where on that spectrum you wind up is dependent on the version of Sun you’re interacting with and the environment his personality developed in.

High-energy and social! A given, of course. He never stops moving and everything is always so exciting. New people are friends he hasn’t met yet until proven otherwise.

Love of pranks… to an extent. Again, jester! I stand by my headcanon of Sun and Moon conspiring to convince the staff Moon’s some sort of spooky monster whenever he’s not actively dangerous. As long as he’s not making a mess, breaking the rules, throwing himself off-schedule, or actually hurting anyone? He’s all over it.

Anxiety. This seems like it’s at least partially caused by the lazy daycare reprogramming. All the Suns we’ve encountered seem to lack knowledge of how to actually get children to behave. It seems more like they programmed him with a bunch of games and activities and then set a bunch of super high-priority tasks for him such as “keep kids safe, keep kids happy, keep kids entertained, keep daycare clean” etc. and he’s unable to really prioritize so he’s just constantly overwhelmed.

Kinda always using “childcare voice.” If you know anyone who’s worked with kids, you know what I mean here. Even with adults, he talks to them like kids sometimes, just because it’s what he knows and what he’s used to and because his processor’s fried from however many hours a week he’s surrounded by kids. Consider his reactions to when you eat the crafts as an example. (IMPORTANT NOTE: I don’t think he’d coddle adults like children. It’s more about tone and vocabulary, like “customer service voice”.)

Stickler for rules. He cares about things being done right! The rules are there for a reason! Order is important to him (probably in no small part because it keeps him out of trouble and reduces his stress).

That’s about all I can think of for now, but as someone who writes a very friendly and sweet Sun, I actually don’t think HW2’s characterization was that far off from what I had already assumed based on Ruin/SB. The only difference is that the Sun I’m usually writing is in a much more supportive environment with lots of helpful staff that care about his well-being. If he didn’t have that, I could absolutely see him becoming more like HW2.

I will finish this off with two final important points:

Being an emotional person and liking “childish” things does not make an adult less of an adult.

(He’s a childcare worker, c’mon.)

If someone gets pissed off after being repeatedly antagonized, that does not make them a “mean/bitchy/sassy person.”

(Yeah, he doesn’t handle it gracefully, but to be fair, I wouldn’t either in his shoes.)

Thank you all for reading!!

[luci-is-a-bitch-x3x]

Obey Me! Brothers react to: Mc turning into their sheep form to comfort the brother when he's upset.

Lucifer's, Mammon's, Leviathan's, Satan's, Asmodeus's (you are here), Beelzebub's, & Belphegor's reactions.

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Welcome! to another part of this adventure! The characters may not be how you imagine! I apologize for any poor jokes, bad spelling, and terrible grammar. Without further ado, please enjoy the content. ♡

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Asmodeus's Reaction

Asmodeus cries frequently, sometimes its just him being dramatic, sometimes his crying is warranted, no matter why Asmo's crying he never fails to mention how beautiful he looks while crying. Asmo will sometimes fake cry for attention, no actual tears so he doesn't ruin his make up, but sometimes he'll purposely cry tears just so his mascara while smear. It adds to the dramatic effect. When Asmo's being dramatic he can "cry" over anything: mc accidently hit him? He's already bawling his eyes out. No attention from anyone? He can make up a reason after he starts crying. Asmo has been found a couple of times crying because of how beautiful he is. However, Asmo does actually cry sometimes, over things that are completely fair to cry over. Sometimes he cries due to stress, sometimes he cries due to past memories or mistakes. Asmo is usually cheerful but he does have his occasional self reflecting sad moments. They dont last as long as some of his brothers do, Levi, but they still happen. He usually goes back to being his cheerful self obsessed self again soon after!

The first time Mc finds Asmo crying and he's not being dramatic is not suprising but also is surprising, if that makes sense. Asmo had been doing a lot of things recently: lots of fashion designs to make, lots of modeling, and student council work! Mc knew this and figured he may be stressed, so they headed over to his room with the intent to help. Mc knocks on the door and when they dont get a reply they almost leave, but they can hear sobbing through the door. Mc knocks again before slowly entering Asmo's room, Mc sees Asmo laying on his bed face first crying into his pillow. Asmo looks up when Mc enters the room, he quickly sits up and turns to face Mc. "MC!!" Asmo screeches with a tear stained face. The sudden yelling suprises Mc and they next thing they know there's a *poof* and Mc turns into their sheep form. Asmo gasps when he sees Sheep Mc and then he squeals at the sight of the adorable Sheep. Asmo quickly stands and scoops Sheep Mc up into his arms so he can hug them, and then he takes them to his bed for cuddles, his upset attitude already seems to be improving just by having Mc around.

Sheep Mc doesn't have to do much to comfort Asmo, they just need to stay with him and listen to him rant. Asmo may pet Sheep Mc but he perfers to hug them tightly, not killer hugs like a certain someone, Asmo just finds hugging them more comforting then petting them. When Sheep Mc first starts comforting Asmo, the hug will be tighter than it will be once he's calmed down a little, while Asmo is upset he may cry into Sheep Mc's wool like someone would a pillow. Gross ik but like what can yah do. After calming down a little he'll finally rant to Mc for a bit. Something along the lines of "I keep making new designs for the accessories, but none of them are as perfect as me!" Asmo is seriously stressing, if it is going to have his name on it, then it has to be perfect. This is probably one of the times when Mc realizes that being a perfectionist can be overwhelming and stressful. Talking about why he was upset probably upsets him again, Sheep Mc probably has to comfort him all over again.

Asmo enjoys being comforted by Sheep Mc but he also enjoys Mc comforting him in their human form. He doesn't really care what form their in just as long as its Mc comforting him. After Mc cheers him up, it doesn't matter what form they stay in to him. If Mc decides to go back to their human form he'll make sure to at least get one picture of them as a sheep before the turn back. If Mc decides to stay as a sheep, then they'll do the normal things they do with Asmo, taking pictures for Devilgram, dressing up, gossiping. Asmo's Devilgram is definitely full of pictures of him and Sheep Mc by the end of the day.

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Thats all for now babes! Hope you enjoyed!! ♡ This is not proofread. Feel free to comment or reblog any thoughts or any add ons you have! I don't know why this one took so long, and for some reason I don't really like it, so I'm sorry. TvT I might try and rewrite it sometime but idk. I know my posts have been random, but ive been posting at least two things at once so hopefully that outweighs the wait. Anyways i have more content on the way so Stay Tuned! Stay Safe! & Stay Groovy Scooby!

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⟡˙⋆Masterlist⋆˙⟡

[tmntkiseki]

Diary of an Idiot Trying to Learn to Draw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Part 1: Escaping the Comfort Zone)

Before we talk turtles and the early steps of my art journey with them, let's talk about me for a little bit.

Hello, most people know me by my online nickname, Star. I'm a perpetually tired gremlin in her late 20s from New England who still lives with her parents and two brothers. (I'm the middle child!) I love my two dogs to bits, I have a weird fascination with shipwrecks and maritime disasters, and I am a known art enjoyer to point of attempting to draw her own pictures. Sometimes it goes well, other times... ah, we'll get to that.

When I think about my history in terms of drawing, it all starts with anime. My first exposure anime was through a fairly obscure one called Sky Girls; I encountered it through Dance Dance Revolution: Super Nova 2 on the PS2, as the opening to the original OVA was one of the songs available in the game. I ended up watching most of the television series and I was quick to discover that, hey, there's an entire genre of animated television series that originate from Japan; subsequently, I ended up watching several anime that were popular during the late 2000s with Lucky Star, Haruhi Suzumiya, Clannad, and Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni all being shows that I watched during this period. It's difficult to say what entranced me so much about the art style quirks we so heavily associate with anime, but it's definitely had the biggest influences on my art; not just anime itself, but video games with anime art styles as well. If I had to name which pieces of Japanese media have affected me most in terms of art development, it would be Odin Sphere, KyoAni's works (especially Violet Evergarden), and Hidari (the character designer for three of the Atelier games and Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia.)

"Okay, but what about when you actually began to do your own art?" WELL, I can definitely say throughout elementary school I absolutely LOVED being in art class, but I didn't start seriously practicing until I was around 13; this was when my depression first reared its ugly head, but it was also about when I first got into fandom online. Now, the first fandom I actually made "content" for was Pokemon, but that wasn't drawing; that was fanfiction. The first fandom I actually drew for?

Call of Duty: Zombies. Yeah, I think we all have that one fandom we're embarrassed to mention that we were ever involved in. Regardless of the cringe factor, it was still important for me because that was when I first started interacting with other fanartists online and if I hadn't spent so much time drawing fanart of a bunch of WWII stereotypes while I was in high school, I wouldn't have laid the groundwork for what came afterwards.

In terms of overall skill, I'm definitely way better than I was back when I first started out, but there is still so much I have to learn; I do often look at other artists who are around my age or, hell, are even YOUNGER than me and think to myself "Why am I not that good?" and, ya know, art is an acquired skill that requires a lot of practice and due to my mental illness and lack of confidence/self-worth, there were periods where I would go for MONTHS without drawing anything, so the fact I'm not where I feel like I should be skill-wise is ultimately circumstantial (there are other personal shortcomings that have also been holding me back, but we'll get to those later). I have managed to learn to stop being so hard on myself and not be as perfectionistic, and I find myself drawing more and more for the fun of it and learning new techniques that'll result in better pieces rather than anything else. These are some of the Rune Factory 4 pieces I drew last year (all Arthur/Frey ship art, oops) and at this point I can look at them and think "Yeah, they're not perfect, but I also did a pretty good job."

All right, this is the part of the post where we finally get to talking about my experiences learning how to draw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--specifically, the 2003 versions. It's been about a month since I started studying the show's art and even if I'm not the best artist on the block, I still have a decent amount of experience under my belt that learning how to draw them shouldn't be too hard, right? Right? I mean how hard can it be to draw four humanoid turtles?

Oh boy, of all the fandoms I've drawn fanart for, TMNT 2003 probably has one of the steepest learning curves that I have EVER experienced.

All right, what are some of the advantages do I have going in? There is my existing experience drawing, but I'd argue the fact that my brain is so hardwired to draw anime is an advantage in some ways. When I first looked at the show's art style (more specifically that of seasons 1 - 5), I was thinking to myself "How the everliving FUCK am I supposed to draw this?!" However, when I actually sat down and studied the model sheets, I was delighted to discover that a lot of the basic fundamentals that I already learned drawing anime bodies can be applied to the turtles; one of the only major adjustments I had to make was exaggerating the muscles of the arms and legs. Not only that, but one of the less human aspects of the turtles IE the plastron is actually incredibly useful as a makeshift guideline for the torsos; it quite literally divides them into chest, abdomen, and pelvis areas and I absolutely love it!

Unfortunately, that's about where my happiness with drawing the turtles ends and where my actual struggles start.

("Nekomata Mikey" from January 7th, which is probably my best and favorite turtle attempt thus far)

So, I suffer from a little something called "not liking to leave my comfort zone." It's not something that I'm incapable of doing, but getting me to break out of a repetitive routine and try something new or challenging is insanely difficult--no idea if it's a result of my autism spectrum disorder or not, but it definitely explains why I've hesitated to experiment more with my art and try new things... which is important if you want to further develop your style and improve. Oooooooh boy.

Now, I'm not necessarily looking to accurately replicate TMNT 2003's style, but I am hoping to maintain certain aspects when I draw the turtles. Stuff that is definitely contradicting what I'm comfortable with when it comes to drawing; the thick lines you see in a lot of the official art, the fact this show really likes using sharp angles to define physical features, the dark color palette of the first five seasons, the fact those seasons break the rule of "don't shade with black" that I've been taught from the beginning--a lot of stuff that I'm just not used to. It's hard not to become frustrated because half the time you have no idea what you're doing and have no idea whether it's going to look good or not.

Beyond that, there is the matter of the less human aspects of the turtles that are giving me a run for my money. I can somewhat handle the chunky three fingered hands and large two toed feet, but when I get to the heads and shells, that's where I start tearing my hair out. Even with multiple reference screenshots from the show and sassatello's tutorial on the head structure handy, I still find myself fumbling and making heads that are too angular and chunky (especially in the cheek area) or heads that are too round to the point of almost looking babyish. The shells are another matter entirely; it's weird because they are basically a dome-shaped backpack, but something about those things keeps throwing me for the loop no matter what angle or pose I'm drawing a turtle from.

*LOUD SIGH*

For all the struggles and frustrations I have, I'm still very happy to be studying and practicing how to draw the turtles. It's been about a month since I started pouring over the model sheets, taking screencaps from individual episodes to examine and annotate, and just drawing, and I've already learned so much. Not only that, but this whole experience of trying to figure out how to draw the main characters from an (almost) 21 year old cartoon has pushed me to look up... A LOT of tutorials for art skills I've admittedly been neglecting. Basic shapes used in the structure of the body, color theory and shading, all that good stuff. It is also a fact that studying the art of TMNT 2003 is exactly what inspired me to start posting all the model sheets and concept arts I have saved on my laptop. When you have a ton of art resources at your disposal, why not share them? Someone else might need them as much as you do.

I'm hoping to make another post like this in a couple months or so just to see how much I've improved, where I'm still kicking and screaming, and what areas I ought to focus on. Until then, take care and have a good day!

[rainbowolfe]

A Deep Observation of the Daycare Attendant

Because I am very, very normal about them.

Were you saddened or otherwise put off by sassy, mean Sun? Then rejoice, you're gonna like this post.

Because as funny as it is, it's a sharp turn for this character to make. Even the cookbook calls out how "nice and helpful" Sun is (according to Freddy). While we don't know when it is, I think if Sun was super impatient and a perfectionist deep down, even with years of training him to tolerate children, it would still show subtly.

TLDR: The Sun we interact with in the Arts and Crafts section isn't "Sun" at all. It's Moon.

Overall

It's interesting how much Help Wanted 2 goes out of its way not to acknowledge Moon. And it's unlikely to be an oversight on Steel Wool's end, this game was being made at the same time as the Ruin DLC. Really, it's so blatant it has to be intentional.

The Carousel levels make no mention of how to keep him at bay in the tutorial. And in the Arts and Crafts Loft tutorial, the instructions are just "Use the flashlight if it gets too scary." When on every other level, it's upfront about what threats you'll encounter and how to handle them.

Speech Pattern

Half of Moon's dialogue in every game he's been in so far has been laughter. So we know he's a giggly, goofy little guy. But one of his new lines is captioned: "The merry-go-round broke down. (snickers)"

Which, not only reads like he's the one who caused it to break down (he doesn't bother you until you touch it after all), but that little snicker dotting the end of his sentence is a verbal quirk Sun's never had before. And yet, we hear it constantly during Arts and Crafts.

Something we also get to hear is his beloved "You're gonna get us in trouble" line. I wouldn't expect the exact same delivery, but it's significantly different. Gregory going behind the security desk is a far more severe infraction than eating crafts, and yet "Sun" sounds far less flustered. Nervous, because it actually is against the rules (and he physically can't go back there if something were to happen) but not so worked up he's stumbling over his words.

Body Language

A lot of thought is put into the movement of all the animatronics, not just Sun and Moon. And they each have a distinct way of moving.

Of the two of them, Moon has always been the acrobatic one. And when he's not doing flips or swimming through the air, he's contorting himself (like that weird helicopter thing he does) or miming.

Even the little details. Sun's limbs tend to flow together in big fluid motions. Moon's movements are jerky and fast (unless he's in the air). And his body parts move more erratically. His fingers twitch. His knees, waist, and elbows all bounce at different times like a cascade. He also spins his head completely around, something Sun almost never does.

Many of Moon's animations were cut, but you can see them all here.

Now, what's the first thing 'Sun' does when you do Arts and Crafts for the first time? The mfer cartwheels in.

Designs

The in-game models we're awarded give us a good look at the differences between Sun and Moon. Most notably is their eyes. Sun has completely white eyes without pupil-holes (they seem almost glassy). Moon not only has pupils, but has one white eye and one black eye (and both glow red).

When you trigger darkness too many times, naturally you're jumpscared by Moon. But when you simply run out of time, Sun jumpscares you... but he has Moon's eyes. Suspicious? Very.

Another odd detail is that in the Artist's Loft level, Sun is there in their Eclipse form. But when the lights go off, they fully transform into Moon.

Jumpscares

Honestly, Steel Wool made it easy for me. If I had started with this, it would've been the only evidence I needed! But alas, I already wrote the above when I noticed this. In Security Breach, Moon's jumpscare is the "menacing tickle-fingers". Sun doesn't have a jumpscare. Moon will do the same jumpscare whether in the daycare or doing the top-of-the-hour shutdowns.

[The mechanism of how these two actually switch is a bit unclear, so this covers my bases if there actually are two physical Daycare Attendant bodies]

In Help Wanted, he keeps this jumpscare, even when he's ruined. 'Sun' with Moon's eyes also does this jumpscare. Their jumpscare doesn't become an actual attack until the Cinder Carousel level with Jack-O-Moon. It's very similar to the way he attacks Cassie in Ruin.

Personality

Sun only has one rule. And it's to keep the lights on. (And to stay out of restricted areas). So he's the type to do whatever will keep the kids entertained. He even encourages chaotic, hyper behavior right off the bat, suggesting they "drink Fizzy Faz until we explode". A hyper child isn't a child that's going to sit still and perfectly do crafts.

But during Arts and Crafts, there are clearly a lot of rules. Do the Paint-By-Numbers in order. Do it exactly as the guidelines say. Don't eat the crafts. Don't move. Don't shoot him with the dart gun. Don't throw things at him. Don't make mistakes. Don't come into his loft while he's malfunctioning. Be creative on your own time. The rules are endless!

So why would Moon be averse to nap time/the lights being off? Well, he actually tells us outright. "You'll... hurt your eyes." Be it an intentional feature or a bug, but when Moon is the one in control of the body, being in the dark makes them hypersensitive to light. And it hurts. As we see in Ruin, enough exposure will make them lock up.

Plus if Sun is still in there (I suspect he's not during the first Arts and Crafts), it could just be that Moon doesn't want to switch at all. Something fucky had to have happened for him to suddenly be the one active during the day. That's probably why they're attempting to train him using Arts and Crafts. It clearly didn't work out and he lost speaking rights. Plus "switching" seems to forcibly put the inactive one to sleep (aka "in a nap").

It seems like the way they're programmed, one of them gets to use the "Sun" voice and one of them gets to use the "Moon" voice, and they can't just swap back and forth.

And that's my post! Can you believe I'm not even done? Next time I'll talk about how Eclipse isn't the combination of Sun and Moon, but the combination of Moon and Jack-O-Moon.

[dorianbrightmusic]

an interpretation of kieran’s mental health in the indigo disk

One thing that’s me very consistently while playing through the Indigo Disk DLC is how Kieran’s behaviour, though erratic, feels horrifyingly believable through a certain lens. Many of his behaviours are painfully reminiscent of my own memories of having anorexia nervosa—and while that’s absolutely not the sole reason someone could break down into an antithetical version of themself as dramatically as Kieran does, I think that as a reading, it can actually coexist very nicely with the actual plot reasoning of ‘competitive tunnel vision’. If anything, it would complement his competitive frenzy quite effectively.

I’m aware this is a risky and hyper-specific interpretation to share, but I’m posting my reasoning beneath the cut, since I think it’s worth sharing not just as a reading of Pokemon, but also as an intersectional look at ED pathology that doesn’t focus so much on either food or figure. Every time I’ve headcanoned a character as anorexic, it’s been because their behaviours seemed painfully perfectionistic and inflexible (see Seto Kaiba), rather than because they looked a particular way. Obviously, massive trigger warning for discussion of restrictive EDs as attempts at self-destruction.

(n.b. None of this is necessarily based on what I've read in scientific papers so much as on experience and observation of others with this disease. As such, if this feels a bit Freud-y-mumbo-jumbo-y, it probably is.)

Let’s start by looking at where Kieran starts out. In Kitakami, he’s stunningly isolated at the best of times. He thinks in extremes—good, bad; hero, villain; strong, weak. His relationship with his sister isn’t bad, per se, but she’s tempestuous and brash, whereas he’s sensitive and fearful. Her attempts to protect him from the worst of the world reinforce his sense of weakness—she shelters him in the harshest way possible, simultaneously expecting him to be tough enough to bear her toughness and weak enough to be able to tolerate nothing else. And though he attends a specialised school for battle, he’s long been the designated weak sibling; as such, he cannot, by nature, be considered admirable at Blueberry Academy. At home and school alike, he feels less than, and desperately lonely. 

To cope, he renders weakness and loneliness as part of his identity, and latches onto the idea of Ogerpon as a courageous outcast, rather than as a villain. It’s an awkward, immature means of coping, as its sole mechanism of granting him any sense of worth further entrenches his isolation and inferiority complex. In defying conventional wisdom on local mythology, he’s choosing to distrust others’ judgement, cutting off any chances of accepting others’ approbation, and locking himself into his own estrangement. His sense of self is constructed around total denial of the fact that being isolated still hurts. So long as he takes up in fantasy, he can’t acknowledge the reality of hating loneliness; and, every time this loneliness and weakness is brought to his attention, he’s suddenly dealing with years of feeling worthless, as compressed into a single moment. As such, he takes defeat awfully, and, having built up very few other ways of coping over the years, gets stupendously angry.

When somebody who’s not from the village comes along, however, maybe he has room to be seen as sensible, rather than contrarian—and, when the player is accepting and kind, he realises that maybe, maybe, there’s room for him to be likeable, worthwhile, in someone’s eyes, after all. So, it’s little wonder that he clings hard to the player, and becomes painfully attached after one day. The player’s affirmation is basically all he has by way of a positive sense of self outside of his own distorted interpretation of legends. Then, cue the player lying to him and taking away Ogerpon. This moment has removed both of Kieran’s last bastions of positive self-image, of ‘maybe it’s okay to be weak, maybe I’m worthwhile anyway’. To him, this isn’t just a minor betrayal—it’s the destruction of his ability to have a sense of worth. It’s pressing on a pain that he’s been systematically ignoring, and reminding him just how much it hurts. 

All he knows, though, is denial—so, to deal with this, he needs to create a new sense of self that can ignore the pain of being weak. But since identifying with weakness hasn’t worked for him, he now attempts the opposite, and takes to pursuing strength at any cost. If he’s strong, then how can weakness hurt him, right?

Except this time, the denial is more extreme, more overtly compartmentalised. He assumes a new team, a new hairstyle, a new manner of talking, dressing, acting. He builds up new rules for life, strict as can be, and brooks no exceptions for any weakness. He is trying, in every way possible, to obliterate the existence of the boy from Kitakami.

An obliterated existence/A dual self

I’d like to pause for a moment here to discuss the compartmentalisation of identity that takes place in anorexia nervosa, as I think it’s relevant here.

Anorexia is a coping mechanism—specifically, the disease promises that by supplanting some part of the self that is currently extremely distressed, it can remove the pain and control the situation. The anorexic personality comes from the original personality, but promises to fulfil its ideals by any means possible. So, seeking a sense of security, the afflicted person compartmentalises—the anorexic personality deals with this thing, the healthy personality with that thing—and reserves the healthy personality from having to deal with distress. The problem is, the illness doesn’t usually fix the problem it promised to, but creates many more. But because it allows one to deny psychic pain, it feels comforting—‘I’m in control of this situation, and the powerless part of me has been obliterated’. Rather than resolve the issues created by the illness by attenuating anorexic behaviours, the person tries to instead brute-force fix things with more anorexia; and onward goes the vicious cycle. In doing this, the afflicted person cedes control of their life to the illness, and, over time, comes to identify with it. While it blocks out their source of pain, it also bonds them to it, forcing them to acquiesce to, if not actively seek out, the increasing physical and emotional toll of the illness.

(I promise it gets better.)

The anorexic personality is split into pieces—the healthy self, and the anorexic self—and the healthy self is usually still dealing with something, so doesn’t feel healthy enough to deal with the things the anorexic self deals with. At first, these selves can be very distinct—the anorexic self often be strict, perfectionistic, and tight-lipped, unwilling to burden others with the original self’s vulnerability. Strict rules and schedules often come to dominate the person’s life while they’re ill—must work this hard, do these things and these times. Over time, the boundary between the healthy and sick selves becomes increasingly murky—one’s mind is invaded from the inside—and the original personality changes further to accommodate the illness. To complicate things further, anorexics tend to not only conceal their distress from themselves, but conceal their illness—and the underlying upset—from others. This is much easier to pull off if you’re isolated to begin with. Recovery thus isn’t merely physical, but psychological, trying to rehabilitate and reintegrate the original identity after a period of being compartmentalised and fragmented. This involves abandoning a coping mechanism and confronting pain that had been abnegated throughout and prior to the illness, so is more complex than just trying to attenuate anorexic cognitions and behaviours. 

Another look at Kieran

Kieran is unbearably lonely, and has long been trying to deny this loneliness in some way or another. Even when he’s identified with the loneliness, he’s done so in order to try to avoid the associated pain. It’s not really acceptance, in that it’s volatile, so much as unsophisticated avoidance hidden by a veneer of acceptance. This unbearable loneliness is his underlying problem—and even back on Kitakami, he’s very much trying—and failing—to push it down. The events of The Teal Mask are enough to show him that denial through surface acceptance isn’t going to cut it, as his relationships with the player and Ogerpon (or at least the idea of Ogerpon) have reinforced how incredibly alone he is.

When he flips on his axis to pursue strength, he’s not pursuing any more sophisticated a means of coping than before, but he’s being much, much more overt about it. Though the source of his angst is, in fact, loneliness and an inferiority complex, he’s convinced himself that the problem is not that he’s alone, but that he’s weak. If he can deal with the weakness, why would he care about feeling lonely? And since the boy from Kitakami was weak, that personality has got to go. Kieran develops a second self, and hands control of his life over to this self, expecting it to resolve the problem that he’s weak. He becomes brutal, because if he can tolerate his own brutality, why should anyone else struggle? He used to be weak, weaker than any of them, after all. 

Pokémon training, realistically, is a form of exercise. And as weak a kid as he’s always been, he’ll make himself stronger, now, so he’ll train, however much hell it is for his team, his classmates, his sister, however much strain it puts on his body, as he barely rests, barely sleeps, barely stops by his room to cook himself anything. Does he need sustenance, when the whole point of this work is to bury his weakness, starve the kid inside himself of his own name and face? Externally, he’s attempted to obliterate the appearance of the kid he used to be – not just in the sense of changing his appearance and his demeanour, but also trying his best to alter his reputation. Physically and behaviorally, he needs to change, he thinks, to block out his weakness, lest it be obvious to an onlooker. Anything less than being a perfect champion will destroy him. 

What happens, then, when the player takes his title, and Drayton ridicules him as ex-champion? Kieran has been hoist with his own petard—with his title in shreds, his identity, too, is in pieces. The player has destroyed him. He’s destroyed himself. And years, years, of abnegated misery now come crashing down once again. So, he makes one final attempt to seize glory with Terapagos, for indeed, other than glory, he has nothing. For the first time, he has to confront the fact that he has nothing. That’s terrifying. What can he do but lash out? He’s been pressing down the scared kid inside for a long time, and as such, that scared, angry part of him is in a state of prodigiously arrested development. So, he screams and he screams. And then, at last, he can start to repent. So, he helps the player. And then, the two of them get to start over—as friends, rivals, family. 

This is recovery: desperately clinging to dysfunction, only to reconcile with being powerless, and, at last, to choose to come back, to walk away from the wreck made of oneself. Kieran must go home to Kitakami—he had no choice, because there was where his real issue—loneliness—had started. (If he didn’t attend a lot of therapy throughout this time, I’ll be amazed.) And, in his time away from school, after finally breaking down and admitting before Terapagos, before the player, before Briar and Carmine, that he had nothing, nobody, he was always going to have to learn, somehow, how to have something, someone, and how to pay respects to the absent space left for both in the meantime. And when he finally comes back to Blueberry, he’s integrated bits of both of his selves. The timid boy from Kitakami is still there, but now has a spine. The tough, one-track-minded champion helps him stay focussed, but doesn’t seep into his personal life—or at least, not to the exclusion of the kinder part of him. He’s not the same kid he used to be—part of that kid died somewhere along the way, in some sense—but at last, he can acknowledge what he really was—scared and lonely—and, with the courage and strength he once misapplied, he can finally move forward, and learn how to breathe again. 

[neojayink]

Sketch Dump + Splatoon Neo Artist Updates

I’m nearly finished the complete plot of sneo hero story. Currently planning on how all my ideas will coincide with each other.

Hero: “Cross Contamination” - A sub plot that introduces Toxic Octolings and shows the failures of a scientist attempting to create genetically modified Octolings. Much like sanitized Octolings, the toxic octos have been contaminated and now show off zombie-like behaviors.

“Hero Team Up” - A pair of heroes on their night shift protecting the city. The left hero is physically exhausted from the mission. Neon Octolings shown carrying the new “Dauber Glove” weapons.

“Part time environmentalist” - Sketches for a story in which the main character works at a water plant facility. Currently scrapped idea as it introduced a convoluted storyline. Reworked into the Hero Night Shifts. (Protecting the Microbiome) “Water jug ink hammer” and “stream shot” seen as weapons. May be explored in the future.

“Tree Octoling Trio” - First concept for the Tree Octoling in the story. The hero will arrive to a zoo-like Forrest enclosure in search of a hidden treasure. The tree Octoling is protecting it, and has never seen an outsider before. Their natural instinct to protect their turf kicks in and a battle starts. Tree octopuses do not exist, but this one has been created in irony of that fact. They represent a successful genetic modification experiment by the scientist.

“Hype Mode” - A new mechanic that lets the player trade their heart for stat boosts. More details coming in the sneo mechanics updates.

Edit: this mechanic will be reworked into what we will call “flow state”

“Lock Jaws” - Splatoon Neo’s second official special. Will be seen after the “Supersize: Streamshot Deluxe” is shown off. The user summons a ghostly koinobori (carp/koi fish streamer ‘kite’.) The lock jaws which is made of holo ink swims through the air and surfaces to latch onto its target. Holo ink allows inklings to cast 3D projections of ink. It’s seen in many specials, but in this case, holo ink casts into a koi fish. Once locked, the enemy player will lose access to its special, sub weapon, and given negative effects such as dizziness and dillution. (Dillution makes you take more damage and deal less damage when affected)

“Turf Board” - New weapon class of surfboard + hoverboard weapons. It will be a usable method of transportation in battles. Comes with its own ink tank to let you “hover” from its fountain mechanism. Ink saver main will be your friend with this wpn as the hover mode will burn through ink. I haven’t finished the mechanics and balancing but I could see this letting you hover for at least 5 seconds. As a turfing weapon it can shoot out two streams of ink. The win animation will definitely look like how people dance with sign advertisements. Vehicles will show up in the “raceway” stage as obstacles you can drive around with ink like the turf board.

And finally,

“Neon Lotus” - Album cover concept 1. The twins have their final designs pretty much complete and they have a few songs in the works already. Their album vibe is inspired by old school sonic graphics. Surprisingly it’s harder for me to create songs for the twins vs ultramarine. It’s about 4 to 6 in difference. I’m definitely a perfectionist to neon lotus but I’m sure they’ll come out great. Over time I’ll be sharing more audio clips for both bands songs.

(This post sat in my drafts for months 😅just now checking drafts)

[g-on-ef]

NikoBran family

Okay so it's been decided that you guys wanna see my nikobran x devil nights headcanons but before I do let me introduce you guys the Sokolov-King Family ^^

These two are my prime nikobran and how I imagine them so yes these are my babies ^^

Now on to the kids {these are the kids ill be using in future stories as well especially (spoilers) for the heart was build to break whether its mpreg surrogate or adoption these will be the kids ill be using} also I'm a firm believer that they would want a big family

Name: Azaliya Hope Sokolov-King

Age: 18

Birthday: May 7th

Azaliya is the oldest of her siblings she's a lot like her dad Brandon quite a control freak perfectionist but also can let loose when she wants to she enjoys figure skating and always works hard on her crafts unlike her siblings she's not an artistic person she does love singing and has a lovely voice but her passion will always be the ice.

She use to date Jeremy's oldest son but realized she didn't like him and broke up with him

She's overprotective of her siblings especially her younger brother after he went through a traumatic event

She meets Ivarsen Torrance after a prank gone wrong and Ivarsen becomes obsessed with her

Name: Jason Kazimir Sokolov-King

Age: 18

Birthday: May 7th

Despite being Azaliyas twin Jason is the opposite of his sister hell he's more Niko than Bran and isn't afraid to show it he's a talented painter especially when it comes to landscapes. Unlike his dad he had a passion for it and everyone can see he has a gift for it. He's not afraid to fight and beat the shit out of anyone family included if it means keeping his family safe.

He meets Madden Mori in a underground fight and he definitely follows in his father's footstep when it comes to following people around till they give in and admit they love him

Name: Hunter Lyubov Sokolov-King

Age: 14

Birthday: June 13th

If there's anyone that's a mini Niko it's his second daughter Hunter. Her name came from Niko wanting to honor his father and decided to give her his last name as her first especially when he sees how much she reminds him of both himself and his dad. She's a tough as nails chick and isn't afraid to fight people twice her age. She's overprotective of all her siblings {yes including her older ones} but none more than her twin brother She's a fashion designer and is always making such beautiful clothes loves drawing especially anime characters

She meets Finn Grayson at the library and since meeting her Hunter has never been the same

Name: William Anatoliy Sokolov-King

Age: 14

Birthday: June 13th

If Hunter is a mini Niko William is definitely a mini Bran. Niko is overprotective of his youngest children especially since they both remind him to much of his lotus flower. William is a shy thing and rarely talks unless needs to he unfortunately went through a traumatic event that makes him afraid of being touched and can sometimes make him mute. He loves writing and enjoys reading a good book. Hunter his sister is his best friend and he adores her.

He and Fane Torrance meet when William was being picked on by his cousin Fane not knowing that was William's cousin beat him up and made a silent vow to protect the small boy that reminded him of a prince

Name: Autumn Maya Sokolov-King

Age: 8

Birthday: October 31

The youngest Sokolov-King member the one everyone is the most protective of Autumn is known as Nikos and Brans little Blessing and her older siblings agree. They all love her and are extremely overprotective of her. Being a Halloween Baby Autumn loves horror gore and of course anime she especially enjoys creating music dancing and playing instruments. She's playful and has a fun and outgoing personality

When Dag Torrance sees her he thinks she's annoying and doesn't like her but after a while she grows on him and as they get older together Dag realizes that he harbors strong feelings for her and won't let anyone take her away from him

Welp that's everyone ^^ I'll start on the headcanons right away and post them soon ^^ im so excited to incorporate these children into my stories especially in the heart was build to break cause spoilers they will make an appearance ^^

[drill-teeth-art]

Design process anon again!! Thanks for answering my question, it was really interesting to hear about your more "loose" process! | personally put a lot of pressure to have one final design for my characters so hearing how you change the character a little bit each time is really neat and a little comforting to not stress about making a final product and just enjoying the process!

Anyways, here's more I'm curious about so you have more room to talk! (Also sorry i might ramble on, I just love hearing people talk about stuff that they enjoy!)

Specifically with Frenzy and Motormaster what ideas made you choose to add such unique aspects to each character?

Like, what thought process led you to give Frenzy such a slinky/accordion body style and Mixmaster more subtle insect aspects when it's such a departure from each ones original G1 designs?

Damn it took me forever to get back to this ! Thank you so much for asking more I'm excited to answer! So here I go! Also, I'm glad hearing about my process is comforting for you in some way to ease up the perfectionist pressure in your own work!

Under the cut because I got a little rambly...

Anyway! Here I go about Mixmaster and Frenzy's designs! Frenzy first!

I can't really talk about Frenzy's design without mentioning Rumble because I designed the two to highly contrast each other! For Rumble, I kept mostly traditional, Transformers design qualities. Blocky and wide and square. And I even emphasized his chunkiness further for fun exaggeration with his design. And Frenzy is supposed to highly contrast him! They sport a much more high contrast palette of mainly brighter red on black as opposed to Rumble's mostly deep blues dotted with accents. I also wanted to give them some more unorthodox robot design details to make them stretchier, sharper, and more fluid in their poses and movements to go with Rumble's slower, softer, and more abrupt mannerisms. A snake motif seemed perfect to capture those qualities! And to capture that I figured an accordion look to their limbs would go great with them being a cassette and a stretchy snake! So for Frenzy, it was a very deliberate departure from standard G1 looks because they're supposed to be Rumble's opposite in a lot of ways.

Here's some art I made of them really featuring their stretchiness:

Anyway! For Mixmaster.

So Mixmaster is actually supposed to have a spider theme to it. The motif goes along with his character arc which I'm not going to summarize entirely right now. Their spider motif is also supposed to compliment Hook's scorpion motif. I also very much wanted to emphasize "Transformers are aliens with unique mechanical anatomy and some are good at keeping up a more 'human' illusion and some aren't" in this fan continuity, and Mixmaster is NOT great at holding up the illusion. The movement of its face is off with their speech. He eats with their barrel instead of its mouth. Etc etc. And I figured more subtle arachnid features would help emphasize the feeling of "this guy does resemble a human in robot mode, but I can see he's an alien". People LOVE to use arachnid and insect imagery in their alien designs to invoke the very "alien" feeling, so I figured I'd do my own spin on it! So that's sort of my process with that unexpected choice!

And here's some art of him:

And that's some of my thoughts about my design process for those two! Thanks for asking :D !

[bluegekk0]

I’m sorry to bring this up if it makes you feel unoriginal but I love how many troupe headcanons we share

-Divine is the costume designer

-Brumm has feelings for the master

-Grimm cannot cook to save his life (Brumm, a seasoned chef, has actually banned him from the kitchen on account of him burning one too many recipes) and only knows how to make tea

It’s just nice to know I’m not the only one with these thought processes lol

Though it does make me curious. What species of bugs do you headcanon Brumm and Divine to be, and where would they be from if this was our Earth? Also, do Divine and Leg Eater still get together in this AU, and if so, does Leg Eater still… meet his rather unfortunate end?

Oh no don't worry, it actually feels really nice that people have similar headcanons! I know Brumm having feelings for Grimm is pretty common but the other two are such a fun coincidence! I love that.

Something about Divine to me just screams "she loves fashion" (maybe it's the fancy mask?). And rewatching The Hunger Games, Effie's character gave me even more inspiration for my interpretation of her. So I headcanon her as quite eccentric and flamboyant, very much a perfectionist with an eye for beauty. She wouldn't be as shallow or manner focused as Effie, though, I do imagine she has a bit of a snark to her. But that bright, energetic personality, and her impressive talent for costume design, definitely made her very popular in the Troupe. She's very involved in the costume making process from start to finish, she wants to make sure each Grimmkin gets a costume that fits them perfectly, and she'll contribute during the sewing process, instructing her crew and assisting them in any trouble.

Brumm's feelings for Grimm were initially just a small nod to the relatively popular ship of these two, but it evolved over time into something that explores both of their personalities to a slightly larger extent. It emphasizes Brumm's loyalty and commitment, but also implies that deep down he wants something more. He lost his family before Grimm invited him to the Troupe, and one of those dead loved ones could have been his partner. Perhaps there were similarities between that partner and Grimm which eventually made Brumm have feelings for him. But then you might wonder: how much of it is genuine, and is it possible that he's just projecting his loss onto Grimm? I doubt he knows the answer himself, but at least Grimm was clear that he wasn't interested and spared Brumm the trouble of figuring it out. So he got the confession out of his system, and was able to sort his feelings out and move on. Well, at least mostly. I think he does still feel attraction towards Grimm, Brumm's subtle glances at Grimm's body whenever he lifts his cloak tell you that much, but that's nothing new for Grimm. He made his body desirable on purpose, so he's used to it, and in his eyes those stares don't mean anything. But at the very least Brumm realized that he needed to move on from his feelings towards Grimm, so those glances aren't as emotionally driven as they were in the past. Just a quick look to admire, that's all. Or so he says.

I made a post about Grimm being terrible at cooking already, so I won't repeat myself. But that is when our headcanons differ a little bit. While Brumm is definitely better at cooking, I wouldn't call him a seasoned chef. The Troupe has its own dedicated cooks so he doesn't visit the kitchen that often.

---

As for the second half of the ask. I mentioned before that I don't see the "bugs" in the AU as actual bugs (insects). To me they're just fictional species, though some of them do resemble real life animals (bugs or otherwise). So neither Brumm or Divine are an existing real life species of bug, though Divine does take heavy inspiration from termite queens (though she isn't actually meant to be a termite queen in my eyes, shes still a fictional creature). Brumm? He's definitely more mammalian in my eyes, maybe a bit bear like? Or perhaps he'd resemble something like a badger a little bit.

I'm not sure how to answer the Earth question, especially since, again, they are a fictional creature species to me. But maybe I could mention what kind of regions they're originally from.

Divine would be from a warmer region, maybe something resembling the mediterranean climate. Warm and dry summers, and cool and rainy winters. She's definitely from far away relative to Hallownest, Grimm would travel the whole world back then so that is why the two first met. She doesn't handle the Hallownest cold very well, you'll very rarely see her outside during the colder months, and she wears a lot of outfits with furs.

Brumm is from a colder region, something like taiga. His home land definitely had a lot of forests and long, cold winters, which made him adapt very quickly to the climate in Hallownest. He's covered in fur similarly to Grimm, though his isn't as much for show as it is to protect him from harsh temperatures. Consequently, his home isn't that far from Hallownest.

---

And lastly, no, I decided that Divine and Leg Eater don't meet. There is a lot about my Divine that I changed from canon for personal preference reasons. The charm making process in particular is... A bit too much for me personally hahaha. And I headcanon my Divine as gay, so she wouldn't be interested. Lucky for Leg Eater haha.

[rxttenfish]

Ship opinions: polly x vick :3

Shipping meme.

HM HMMMM

okay, so the main issue you need to keep in mind first off is that i don't really care for the PCs very much. not anything special, just the same thing as always where, by proxy of having literally no writing or Anything about them or describing what they were like, they never felt like actual characters to me and the recent work in roadtrip and the like, trying to flesh them out, is trying to work uphill and only makes them seem criminally flat and boring to me. i could tell you far less about vicky and what she cares about and what her inner world and emotions are like than i could tell you about scott or about valerie or about basically any other characters. and this, combined with how much the fandom loves them and uses them as self inserts (not a bad thing necessarily, very much intended by design) has not greatly endeared me to them either. they're charming little designs, and IMO they should have remained that way.

which is always going to have to be the disclaimer i give with all the PC ships, you know? i don't really know how to describe the PC side of the equation, which means its very hard to describe the relationship between the characters. one of these characters is much more interesting and dynamic, designed with a synergy between their personality, appearance, history, plot, and voice, and the other looks pretty with a personality coming in two games later.

i understand a lot of people love PC ships! and they love the PCs! i understand they mean a lot to a lot of people!

its just also sad that unfortunately they do not mean very much to me and that's going to impact how i think of them in ships.

so... for polly and vicky, we have someone who believes in celebrating life and love and the moment while you have it, who is very aware of the ups and downs of life and has dealt with her own, who is smarter than what people take her for but cares less about correcting this as much as she cares about using it to pull the wool over their eyes, but who is sometimes careless and prone to getting carried away, sometimes forgetting to look back and make sure others can keep up with her or that they haven't become collateral damage. and you have vicky, who is smart and spunky and intense, surely, with a perfectionist streak.

i think, on my first impulse, that polly might have an issue, since i imagine vicky would easily pick up on how smart polly is, and while polly doesn't mind the cognitive engagement and fun that comes with knowing how to pick apart something complex, i also don't see herself as particularly wanting to paint herself as a "smart person". vicky feels like she might tend to want to push polly towards that, as perfectionism tends to also end up projected onto others, especially others who have potential but aren't using it, and again, polly doesn't really want to use it like that. she's not ambitious, she's just doing what feels good, exploring and finding new avenues for pleasure and to sate her curiosity. polly wants engagement, less so fulfilling a prerequisite list of expectations.

vicky certainly gets into a lot and she throws herself in with her full heart, and polly does something similar, but polly's less committed to the outcome. she's not trying to succeed, necessarily, and i don't think she actually cares if she fails or loses so long as she enjoyed herself doing so. polly manages to succeed and to be damn good at things mostly out of rule of funny, but also because she is actually sincerely skilled, just skilled in an entirely different way than what vicky's used to.

honestly, i think these two might get on each other's nerves a lot? vicky seems to me like too much of a tryhard, too high strung for polly, and polly just doesn't care about all of the things that vicky has used to measure herself by, seemingly making a mockery out of them even when she's not trying to, chronically unable to take anything seriously. this feels like an extremely bad combination to me, something that, while it could work in the right circumstances (because, realistically, every potential combination of personalities could as a relationship, don't take this as me giving relationship advice or saying what will or won't work), isn't something that i see happening easily or even something that could happen in these circumstances. i kinda see this as the worse version of polly x liam, where the other party is too stiff and too set in their own ways and own way of looking at things to consider polly's own perspective and feelings, and to respect her own fears of commitment in a way that isn't just judging her for feeling that way.

[popping-greenbean]

HOW DO YOU JUST FILL UP ENTIRE SKETCHBOOK PAGES???? I’LL SKETCH FOR LIKE A HALF A PAGE AND THEM IM OUT OF INSPIRATION LIKE HOW?????

uhhh i think maybe a good half of the time i fill up pages quickly bc ill be messing around with ideas and expanding on them, like if im brainstorming on a character design, i scribble a lot of variations, pose ideas, expression ideas and things all related to it and then.then i just fill pages ?? the other half is just from drawing the first thing that comes to mind in the moment, like just doodles of classmates or geese or whatever, and its just like.

ive taken to thinking of my sketchbook as a catch-all braindump zone instead of thinking of filling each page nicely, and i think actively denying and deleting that perfectionist aesthetic sketchbook idea is really helpful in just letting your ideas pour out way faster without worrying about quality, which then actually lets the good ideas come out, which can then be cleaned up and coloured or whatever later on!! cheesy of me perhaps but i love my sketchbook much more bc of the time i spend in it, the notes and thoughts i write in there, being able to flip through and remember what i was feeling at the time,, more than i love any specific drawings or pages in it yknow

[dudewithastick]

sneaky peek at my current wip (also the first wip i had in months) and some thots on it. i need to rant (complain) so bear with me

so far its going pretty good, it doesn’t look bad and thats cool bcs i defs wouldve given up if it did look bad at this point.

obviously this is some kind of realism style and its okay, its not the best, idc. what sucks is that i dont even want this style but its the only one i can do. like i wanna do cartoons and other artsy stuff with clear lines or just sketching. stuff i see online, but i CANNOT do it, no matter how hard i try. i will always do some realistic shadowing and then its over bcs the composition isnt right for me anymore. and i hate it bcs not only would my life be so much easier if i wouldnt fall into this kind of ‘realistic’ style, which is straight up a pain, id be so much more productive as well. but i’m some weird perfectionist dumbass (blame it on my virgo rising or whatever) so shading and tiny details it is.

speaking of details, i love that i accidentally built this wip on my sketch file, which was not nearly a good enough format and now the quality SUCKS ASS but thats nothing new to me so i’m just gonna accept that every detail i draw is like 5 pixels only and you can barely see them.

another thing i suck at is color theory. and when i started this project (yesterday) i was set on doing only b&w. literally 3 seconds in i used colors and i regretted it immediately bcs it looked good which meant i had to continue bcs we dont do half assed shit… so now i committed to color and i don’t understand color theory. like i can see it working but it doesn’t make sense and all i do is experiment bcs i see no sense or pattern (now i question my tiktok diagnosis of autism, neurodivergence and adhd)

at this point i have also given up at originality. im just copying my references picture, which is fine bcs i will never be able to draw a whole ass person, and i would defs not be satisfied if i wouldn’t add details. so now im stuck at drawing a whole military outfit and my reference picture is also only 9 pixels so i cant even make out what im drawing. i’m just guessing at this point.

okay for now the last part of my complaining… @blnk338 why did u choose such a unique mask for reaper? the way i struggled with the concept and its still not perfect but i dont wanna get hung up on it so i’m moving all over the place and going back to the mask every other minute… pretty sure the mask design alone took me 2 hours to put together so it made sense to my brain and then another 3 to design to my liking lmao

anyway this is a snippet of my current take on reaper from rwys, which so far is only the body but there will probs be eyes at some point, if i dont give up. first time in months, almost years of drawing something, so i guess big thanks to blink for giving me the motivation and a character to work on for fun. hopefully i can give an update on progress soon lol