#my writeups

[the-slow-but-make-it-fandom]

[parisoonic]

How the hell do you manage to superimpose the hilariously exagerated proportions of the tf2 mercs into a cohesive 2d style? I always struggle SO much with like, the way the mercs' models have huge hands, the way they have relatively low-poly definition on things like arms, shoulders, and legs... and Especially the way like, the models are kinda janky when you pose them for art purposes- when using movement tools, things like armpits and seams between body parts get all deformed... Which makes the study of form and silhouette rather difficult.

I assume that a lot of your ability to translate the concept of the mercs from their original mediums into your own works of art comes to you quite naturally- through experience you have with drawing and art style stuff, as well as through intuition. I was simply wondering if I could poke at your mind and get some insight into your process, any thoughts you have about the proportions and silhouettes of the mercs, any quirks you've found while drawing the mercs, or simply what you enjoy drawing about them. Like, don't be afraid to infodump about something just because you think people wouldn't find it interesting- I am here, I am sitting, and I am listening- if you so choose to speak.

I am utterly fascinated and enraptured by the more behind-the-scenes aspect of art. The mundane things that come second nature to great artists yet seem so revolutionary to less experienced artists.

I love your work, I look forward to seeing more of it, and I hope you have a nice day :]

Sorry for the late reply! I've been a little…stuck on how to answer this but that's mainly because to me, drawing is composed of SO many different little skills - you have form, anatomy, shape language, silhouette, appeal, rhythm, acting and posing…not to mention everything AFTER your raw draughtmanship like line style, rendering and colour theory. Trying to distill a multiude of small skills into some pithy advice is overwhelming to my brain. So I'll take the invitation to ramble instead :))

I don't think I have any new or revolutionary insight into the tf2 guys specifically - more I'm using them as work horses to excercise general silhouette/posing/shape-language and further my skills when it comes to drawing characters!

I do agree though the proportions are rather silly when you stop and think about them realistically…they can be kinda tricky if you follow their 'actual' proportions. what looks great individually was maybe never meant to be directly compared (ie: Heavy's hand size against Spy's lol). It would've been funny if the TV show exsisted and we had more content to review…would the animators have had rules like Spy and Heavy can never shake hands? Would they cheated the proportions for shots? Or would they have said WHATVER it's gonna look weird and embraced it? (Like Kingpin in Spiderverse lol)

Paul Lasaine for 'Into the Spiderverse' This is AWESOME. But it's also one of the silliest designs I've ever seen comitted to screen. The varied scales of the characters work because of the unifying treatment (lighting, rendering, consistant hand anatomy, consistant clothing fold treatment etc) and because they are sort of proportional within themselves. A common mantra is that hands should be about as large as a characters face....which they all are here!

Human brains are very flexible and forgiving though. It's totally fine for you to put a character with huge hands and head next to a teeny tiny character! Vanellope and Ralph from Wreck-It Ralph look grand next to each other! And in that film you even have varying levels of stylisation sitting against each other (unified by the look dev treatment of the shaders and lighting). I think as long as the chracter is proportional within themselves it sort of works out. IE: a general rule is that a hand should be as large as the face so…you can have some large arse hands as long as their placed on a body with a big arse head. Unifying characters with the same treatment (ie: lineart brush, colouring style will also help them look cohesive next to each other :) )

I don't actually reference the 3D models/animations very much at all and instead draw their proportions based on my tastes for stylisation following their general vibes/silhouette profiles. I don't stick THAT close to their in-game looks and there are artists who do that are so so so much better than me (Creedei and Flapjack come to mind). I'm not amazing at body-type differentation and TBH they're all wearing chunky clothes all the time so I usually draw the guys as one-of-three body shapes: Heavy is the uniquely wide guy; Sniper/Scout/Spy are all tall and slim and Demo/Soldier/Medic/Engie have a little more of the generic 'hero' bodytype with varying tallness and broadness of the shoulders

Something like this! You can vary all these individual elements in terms of size, thickness, taper amount etc to create different characters. If you ARE going to reference the 3d works though you'll need to apply some anatomy knowledge to overcome the weird shoulders, armpits and knees which desperately need blendshapes to correct the 3D volumes and approach it a little more like an animation supervisor. There's a reason why you see in making-ofs and art-ofs character designers, character leads or animation supes doing drawovers of the models. These are character models that have had great effort put into their 'base' silhouette but it still needs to be reinforced in every frame for maximum appeal.

Shiyoon Kim for 'Raya' This sort of thing will occur at multiple stages during the animation process. Shiyoon Kim's notes are post final model but pre-animation. Most likely for internal rig tests, exploring what blend shapes and alt shapes are needed for the rigs etc. If your production has time, this will continue all the way to final anim. IF! But it's interesting to see how he emphasises the shapes and enhances the character acting of the 3d model.

As for 'mundane things' - I wouldn't say they're second nature! (If that makes you feel better!) I have to actively really persue certain advice and try to figure out how to best apply it. This can sometimes involve redrawing and redrawing an element of the drawing until I've grasped the nettle of whatever I'm after or…..until I get frustrated and either delete the drawing or just call it done lol

Here, I'm looking for a really specific flow of the head that sells both the acting and a subtle head tilt. I'm also trying to apply the general mantra regarding faces that converging lines (set by the eyebrows and mouth) are more appealing than parallel. It's tough! I also tend to use a drawing I've already done as a template/reference on the page too. Oh! This page is an amazing example of why I'm not an animator or storyboarder…consistancy? Who is she? 💅

Converging lines (that form tapered shapes) are always more appealing than parallel. Using this logic you can loft the facial features across converging lines to create dynamic appealing espressions. Combining this with anatomy, perspective and rotation is the tough part though. I'm still learning o7

The things I probably think about MOST are always flats vs curves, simple vs complex and general line of action/flow...and then eliminting tangents. Each of these can be a dedicated visual-essay on their own - hence my stumbling as to answer your question. Anyhow, not sure if it's ever come up on this blog but I looove dinosaurs :)) so i'm using a wee piece to demostrate these ideas! (but also to demostrate these concepts apply to everything from humans characters to animals, props and background design)

Okay, I'm getting self-aware that this is getting really long :') I have a wee tutorial tag for my blog if anyone wants to comb through my garbled art-thoughts. Learning, studying, repetition and practice will always be the greatest teachers! I'm glad you like my art- thank you so much for the lovely comments - I feel like such a noob still and not qualified to give people advice but we're in it together learning! High-five! 🙌

[gammaraydeath]

so how do people think growing up spacer works in the mass effect universe? miranda will comment that shepard learned from education modules, which makes sense to me - and from that you can extrapolate that there must be ships or stations that don't expect to see any action where it's ok for you to bring your kids aboard. they might even be referred to as nursery ships, like, these are the posts that parents take in order to stay close to their kids and keep their jobs. it might be a career hit in some cases, like you were a captain of a warship but now you're overseeing some, fuck, i don't know, an agricultural research vessel for the next 18 months until you get shuffled off to some other low-stakes assignment or something like that. i don't really know how the logistics of that would work, honestly. and at what age does all this start for kids? preschool age? are there daycares for infants whose parents are both working for the alliance? how early can you start raising your kid in space? how long is alliance maternity leave? does your "nursery ship" posting end when your kid is 16? 18? 21?

also, those on-ship education modules are totally designed to subtly (or not so subtly) prime children to join the alliance as soon as they "graduate". i bet certain kids get earmarked by the system too. good test scores, demonstrated leadership skills, good fitness, etc among the desirable traits

[chocodile]

Tiny little asteroids (Tiny little asteroids) Crashing through the sky (Crashing through the sky) Poison all my blood (Poison all my blood) Cut out both my eyes (Cut out both my eyes)

[vulcanautus]

"I have to carry on, and do everything he planned to do."

[blueberrybindery]

Another Name for a Companion by simkjrs

Kaveh has achieved so much today, it should be fine to do this much for himself. It should be fine to enjoy this much. There is absolutely nothing that Al-Haitham could possibly do to ruin this day!

Of course, this is when Al-Haitham chooses to walk in covered in blood.

process post here!

[remxedmoon]

“the cautious ewe. the chime of its bell begets its strike.”

hooved

🛎️ power - 3 health - 3 blood

bell ringer - this card’s power increases the closer it is to the combat bell. power also increases for each chime on the field.

bellist - when a card bearing this sigil is played, a chime is created on each empty adjacent space. chimes have 0 power and 1 health.

hidden trait - insulating coat

this card cannot be transformed into a frozen creature. frozen creatures have 0 power, 5 health, and the frozen away sigil.

mirewebelle… she’s one of my favorites out of all the cards i’ve made. anyways!! writeup time!!

ding ding! yeah this entire card is themed around that one interaction on the first floor where mira talks about the bells on her brooch. she might be trapped in a card but i can’t take away her funny noises

the bell ringer + bellist interaction is so cool but it’s so hard to achieve ingame. with optimal placement, mira can do 5 damage on turn 1. hence why she’s a 3 blood! she hits harder than a grizzly. those funny noises are dangerous

i know female sheep don’t usually have horns but like. shsshhsshhhhh. she looks cooler with the horns. she’s like. one of those breeds where both males and females have horns. it’s fine.

i wanted to make the eyes in her alt art look like the change symbol!! because it’s fun!! every alt card has something special!

unlike sif, mira isn’t a talking card! none of the party is actually. as always siffrin suffers alone broken heart emoji.

also! that card trait huh. what the hell is a frozen creature? it’s. a reskin of the frozen opposum. i’ve got a king boss fight in the works and one of the mechanics of it is that he’ll target spaces and turn the cards within them into frozen cards. the frozen away sigil makes the card release a creature upon being killed. in this case, it’d probably return the card to the state it was in prior to getting frozen. and it’s called insulating coat because sheep teehee.

her patch’s sigil is armored/nano armor! which prevents the card from taking damage the first time it gets hit. since transferred sigils also affect the chimes, her chimes can tank an extra hit in battle! looking back though, i think leader would’ve synergized with her kit a bit better. since she can’t get an attack buff at campfire events (without glitches, at least), she’s basically capped at 5 power without that sigil. oh well! armored still works.

speaking of that patch. FUCK that patch. i had to cut out a jpeg of that thing by hand for every card because oops! i couldn’t find a png of it! only one of the card generators lets you add patches and it’s the less game-accurate one. so i had to manually cut it out for each card that had a tribe. which is most of them. hhhh at least i don’t have to deal with it anymore. it sucked.

and i think that’s all my notes on this card! here is a mirewe. observe her

[honnojis]

III. The Empress

bsky version // choice writeup

(also i have writeups for the previous cards too!)

[boxturret]

Flexile Tarakava Spine, made Flesh

This is a followup to my post about the apparent design revision to the Tarakava you can see in the cancelled game Bionicle, Legend of Mata Nui.

I mentioned wanting to get the parts to make it real, and thanks to them turning the post back on, I did!

Its....not great. Its much worse than I thought it would be.

If you flip the kickstand around you can get an okay roaring pose, but its very wobbly.

Since the Tarakava is so hunched forward the whole build is incredibly unstable.

Also click hinges just like...suck. Doing this reawakened a lot of traumatic memories of trying to use them back when I played with legoes, and they're just the worst. Too stiff to be used in smaller things without tearing the build apart, too weak to be used in larger builds.

I just knew right away that the hinges wouldn't hold up to the quite strong forces the Tarakava goes through in normal use, but I didn't really consider the whole...hinges+human skin thing until I actually messed around with it.

Ouch.

So in conclusion, I am firmly of the opinion that as a physical build, this sucks, but as it, or something similar, is used in LOMN, I think its a "cannon" option for people rigging the model digitally to try it to give it some more flexibility while not resorting to making the spine a noodle.

Its dark out.

[aurosoulart]

something I always ALWAYS do with digital art is to do so using a mode I like to call "Mobile Preview"

(it's not actually called this. all I did was make the built-in thumbnail preview of my art program huge. the cost to work space is worth it)

doing this allows you to see if anything you're actually working on is even visible on a mobile phone - which is what 70% of the users of this site access it with. I cannot even begin to tell you how much time this saves you. 🙏 save your wrists and life force, artists, I beg of u 🙏🙏🙏🙏

[leota-nexus]

Rules: Post Your OC and then 4 Random Pictures (or more) with no explanation to convey your characters vibe.

Tagged by @katsigian @ghostoffuturespast & @elmknight who also tagged me in this:

compassion: 10/10 (she will find ways to be compassionate even when it's entirely unexpected)

bitterness: 6.5/10 (she's not bitter, she doesn't know what you're talking about, she just doesn't like to look back or remember because honestly they can all fUCK THEMSEL-)

happiness: 8.5/10 (she chooses to be happy when she can but life's beatdowns often win so instead she tries to focus on being fiercely free & flexing hope as a muscle)

politeness: 7/10 (I mean, she thinks she's being polite? She's trying. When she wants to.)

chivalry: 10/10 (Zaddy's a gentleman just do NOT slap a bitch in front of her, she won't ask questions & she'll take the warrant without hesitation)

pride: 🏳️‍🌈/10 (jk, she's learned to be proud of herself but she's not overly cocky)

honesty: 8.9/10 (not always honest with herself + memory issues + knows better than to be a fully open book in Night City but genuinely does her best to do right by those close to her)

bravery: 9/10 (this is maybe not always a good thing)

recklessness: 7.5/10 (look, she knows when to be smart & cautious but she also knows damn well she's always been a chaos gremlin at heart, it's how she burns off steam ♡)

ambition: 6/10 (They said "You're going to die!" She said "No." They said "You could be the greatest Night City's ever seen!!" She said "Jackie already is." Then she promptly fucked off to figure shit out on her time on her terms)

loyalty: 10/10 (if you've earned it)

love: 11/10 (she is Love, she is Fire, she is Passion, she is Hope)

sense of family: 10/10 (she's already debating adopting you into her found family as we speak)

attractiveness: 10/10 (It's taken her a lot of time to learn to love the body she's in & modify it to her heart's content. She's more focused on feeling comfortable with herself than what others think about her but it's at a point where she can feel happy & at home in her body)

agility: 8/10 (she's jumping rooftop to rooftop just sometimes she flubs it & lands on her face, luckily she's got built-in damage resistance & a pretty quick heal response)

sex drive: ~/10 (she's demisexual so it depends)

Tagging without pressure @katsigian @ghostoffuturespast @shimmer-like-agirl @baublekute for the oc qualities + @luvwich @fereldanwench @dreamskug @wraithsoutlaws @rosapexa @astarionhistears @cyberpunkaddict @miss--river @glitchinginthegarden @revachol-route-zer0 @victoria-ward420 @teddys-shion @harellan @my-alternatevy @galdorcraeft @mynonsenseistingling @wanderingaldecaldo & anyone else who wants to join in for either or both! <3

[yellowistheraddest]

love getting way too many references and my browser becoming this

'wsnneeoarseeeasnne' and we love her for it

[do-you-know-this-queer-character]

Do you know this queer character?

Jon is Biromantic and Asexual, and uses He/Him pronouns!

Art by @ wellotwig on X

[redvamie]

Just finished the cliffhanger ending (will be getting everything else next week). So, Andrew.

Just like how he was Ashley’s [parent brother friend emotional support etc etc] she was his [child sister friend emotional support etc etc]. Aka just as he was her everything she was also his everything. Everything but the one thing he actually wanted and wasn’t forced upon him to be (lovers). And that’s why he was so resentful and angry at Renee dumping Ashley onto his lap (‘I put in all this effort to deal with and take care of and even teach this girl and I can’t even get what I truly want from her?!’) and also said the lines he did in that one vision with Julia (the one along the lines of ‘I’ll forgive everything you do my beloved. After all I help made you this way’). Similar to how Andy’s hers, Ashley’s his.

[hustlerose]

oops, all rpgs! hades has been eliminated because i already did that one

[presiding]

literally saw corvo and daud and was like 'is anyone gonna make them have an increasingly bloody and painful fight in the rain?' and then didnt wait for an answer. yea new chapter of swan song up