#or coming up with ocs or just drawing original art is also very difficult

[sunny-daysss]

Ugh, I feel like no matter what I do I’m just not Good At Anything™

[mahou-furbies]

Once again it is time for

This year's event will be hosted by mahou Zeldas, because I've been spending a lot of time in Hyrule this year.

Mahou anime of the year:

(Futari Wa Precure Splash Star, Yes! Precure 5, Yes! Precure 5 GoGo, Smile Precure!, Mahou Tsukai Precure!, Hirogaru Sky Precure!, Otona Precure, Tokyo Mew Mew New s2, Magical Destroyers, Zettai Bouei Leviathan, Petite Princess Yucie, season movies for Splash Star, Yes5, Yes5 GoGo, Smile & Delicious Party, Crossover movie for Fresh Precure!)

Then the stuff I read:

(Saint Tail, Stellar Witch Lips, Magical Girl Tsubame, W.i.t.c.h. reboot, Smile Precure novel, Null Magical Girl, Magia Record Scene Zero)

I also keep up with what kind of designs Magia Record releases though I don't play it or otherwise follow the story.

Extremely Precure year this time around though that was not intentional, usually I only manage one backlog season per year. But I started with Smile, and then we were hit with the news that we'd have a Yes5/Splash Star sequel in autumn, and in preparation for that I had to power through some 150 episodes for the original series. And then I somehow ended up watching all of Mahou Tsukai in less than 2 weeks. And then there was Otona as well of course.

Now there's only three backlog seasons left, and they should be doable in a year if the Mahou Tsukai sprint is of any indication, though we'll see how that goes. I'd like to take a look at other similar shows too (like Doremi and Sailor Moon) but I want to clear Precure first before moving to the next thing.

The W.i.t.c.h. reboot was also a thing this year, which seems to have come and went with a thud. Which is a shame because I was looking forward to it, but... well it wasn't particularly good. I guess it can pick up of there's more to the story.

For the first time I've followed a Magia Record (game) story, with Scene Zero. The format is difficult but I am interested, so it's possible I'll look into more MagiReco stories once Scene Zero is over. The game has so many cute characters so I'd certainly like to know more about them.

This year I also took part in ArtFight and did some mostly mahou themed OC art, which was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to doing the same next year as well if they host the event again.

Now onto the awards!

Best henshin design goes to Cure Sky! Blue lead Cure aside this is a top tier magical girl design, and that is mostly thanks to the cape, especially the red inside and yellow fringe. It looks so majestic! But being a half-cape prevents her from looking too stuffy. The thin twintails also look great with the cape in action shots. And of course she is also stupidly cute.

Also a shoutout to Saint Tail's simple but very effective look with a rarely seen colour scheme.

Best team design goes to Stellar Witch Lips! Similar enough to be a team but everyone has their own take on the theme, black makes for a good base colour and the sparkly tops look amazing.

Best powerup design goes to Cure Felice's Alexandrite form! She looks so regal and powerful, truly a nature goddess!

Best civilian design goes to Cure Sky in general! I just like her practical style and the clothes look all comfy.

Best hair goes to Junia! It looks so soft and poofy and her pastel colour palette makes everything even cuter.

Best magical item goes to the tiara and amulets in Petite Princess Yucie! They aren't that special to be honest but I'm always ready for magical items that don't look like cheap plastic toys.

Best henshin scene goes to Cure Sky! A lot of dynamic animation, the tinted split screen at the end is fresh for Precure, the modulation in the middle amps up the power, the dark background makes everything a little bit cooler, and the cape flip and wings at the end just look amazing.

Best fan creation goes to ArtFight in general! It was my first time participating, and getting to draw other people's ocs on a low threshold was great, and obviously receiving a ton of art of my own ocs felt amazing.

Best relationship goes to the group in Petite Princess Yucie! I really like how the side characters have distinct relationships with each other and not just the main character, and how not everyone gets along all the time (or most of the time with Glenda and Elmina). The fact that they're also rivals makes things more interesting and everything culminates successfully in the power of friendship in the end.

Best mascot goes to Saki's cat Korone! Not exactly a traditional Precure mascot but he does become more mascot-like towards the end. Absolute unit of a cat, gets a funny deep voice and even lands a hit on the final boss, and most importantly isn't annoying.

Best supporting character goes to Kintoleski from Splash Star! He's a pretty simple character but I like villains who are honourable and polite, and he managed to be consistently funny as well.

Best visual goes to Stellar Witch Lips! The story wasn't really anything to write home about but the ultra cute and sparkly art is just magical.

Best audio goes to Updradft Shining bgm! It's surprisingly epic for such an early series attack and it'd be cool if the franchise used music like this more.

A honourable mention to Tsubasa's eagle sound effect in the Majestic Halation attack, Mabayu's (MagiReco) silly "nuwawawa" scream of pain in a decidedly serious scene, and every "Haa!" from Ha-chan.

Best scene goes to the separation and reunion scene from Mahou Tsukai Precure! Or I guess that's more like half of an episode. Really impressive how they spent so much time on pretty low-key character stuff like this.

Honourable mention to the big battle towards the end of Petite Princess Yucie.

The Innovation award is given to a magical girl work that I think does something fresh for the genre. This year it goes to Hirogaru Sky! Precure for having a boy Cure, an adult Cure and most importantly a non-pink lead Cure! Which isn't particularly notable for the genre as a whole but a gigantic achievement for this franchise. Hopefully it wasn't just a 20 year celebratory fluke and we'll see more variety in the future too.

The Golden Mana award is the prize given to one thing I didn't like.

This year it goes to the henshin forms in Otona Precure, or more specifically the way it did absolutely nothing about them. No adults-as-magical girls, no new looks as 14-year-olds, and not even a new powerup form for the final finisher. Boo! I'm not really saying that the show is required to include new forms just because I wanted it or because it's common in the genre, but that would definitely have made me a lot more forgiving of its many other flaws. And this is my list so I get to complain about my preferences.

Dishonourable mention to Nozomi's catchphrase in Yes5 and GoGo for exemplifying the selfish and pushy aspect of pink heroines like this that often goes uncriticised.

Best character goes to Cure Sky! In addition to the excellent character design she also has a fun personality, "earnest dumbass" is a great combo, and her determination is just great. I also like that she isn't super girly for once. The story of Hirogaru isn't that good so Sora too is held back from having a truly awesome story, but as a character she is still enjoyable enough.

Best work goes to Petite Princess Yucie! It has fun characters, great designs, good group dynamics, interesting world and a really strong ending. It's a shame they don't seem to do kids' anime like this nowadays?

Plans for 2024

Onwards to 2024! I swear this year I'm going to continue with MagiPro, I've been stuck at volume 7 for several years.

[polychromatiica]

i love ur art sm!! ur such an inspiration 💌💌how do you choose your palettes? the colors you use have always catched my eye

thank you so much!!!

For the colours, I don't know what to suggest if you do traditional art as I'm not very skilled in that but if you're a fellow digital artist I can try!!

pretty long post coming up, btw I do need to preface I'm just a student and not a professional, so take this all with a grain of salt especially if i get technical at all

TL;DR (too long didnt read): i use a green and or orange multiply layer, i try to give everything a dark green-orange undertone, focus on how certain colours look when next to each other and how they can appear completely different

also also its late and im tired so i apologise for any mistakes

i usually start by doing colours that generally match the character im drawing, then i just kinda go wild with altering them, ive learnt to pick them on my own through practice but a lot of the time and starting out i simply mess around with "blending modes". It'd be difficult to explain all of them and they may differ from software to software but my favourite one is "Multiply" (which should be on most softwares, hopefully!)

now, what you do with these depends on what sort of vibe youre going for, I like warm colours, I don't really know how to describe my art, but I like it to be saturated yet dark.. if that makes any sense lmao

gonna use this random doodle of emma to explain what i mean. on my phone rn so its not,, very good but itll do haha

so, i started by getting roughly similar colours to what she has. colourpicking from official art is always an option too, if youre drawing an oc then just figure out the general "local colour" (flat colours unaffected by lighting) you want the character to have and put them down, my art switches from being desaturated and saturated a lot depending on the vibe im goung for, for the more saturated art I'm gonna add a clipping layer of this solid bright yellowy green olivey colour in this example (the colour you use changes the atmosphere of it a lot, i usually use green or orange because i really like the look it gives, i love dark and warm tones)

clipping is a feature a lot of art softwares should have, for this im using ibis paint x, i usually use clip studio paint, others will have it and blending modes too, it lets you create a new layer and "clip" it to the one below, anything you draw on the clipped layer will only show up on space that has been drawn on the layer below (but you can hide/delete anything on this layer and it won't effect the original layer!)

next im gonna use the multiply feature,

"keeps only the darker colors of the blend layer and makes light colors less opaque. The resulting color is always darker, except for where it's pure white" (taken from a website called sketch) dunno how much the specifics of its affects change between different softwares, but the way I view it is always "makes base colours darker, and adds a tint of whatever colour you selected"

the result from doing that is this! this gives a sorta green tone, you can play with the opacity to change the intensity. this is a really simple trick to get cool looking colours, and the more I've used it and paid attention to what specific colours i get from doing it. for these saturated pieces ive noticed that depending on how much I tinted the piece any colours that would for example be white (like the hair frederick has in this drawing) is actually straight up yellow/orange

i have some art thats a little less saturated/a bit darker than this though, but its a pretty similar process! you can see the white of their shirts are actually again a dark desaturated yellow/orange, now you may notice it looks a little green at first, that is another thing to keep in mind

colours can trick your eyes a lot! and you can use this to your advantage very well, I'm not well versed enough in colour theory to explain the exact specifics on how this happens, but basically depending on the colours surrounding it, certain colours can appear completely different

another example is normans waistcoat in this drawing, you probably see that and think "thats blue" but nope, somehow, its actually a very very desaturated yellow! grey can appear as blue a lot ive noticed

if we isolated that grey/yellow colour you can see it is in fact grey, but it looks blue in the whole drawing!

whilst obviously theres nothing wrong with making a drawing of a character where things like blue actually are blue or a white/grey is actually white/grey, in the style of art I do i personally enjoy limiting the amount of colours used and using certain tricks to make it look like theres more variation in hues than there actually is, i like how cohesive it makes the artwork look :)

heres another example of what multiply can do with a few different colours, its best to learn to colour without it, i see multiply (and other blending modes! theres a lot of them) like training wheels, its not cheating to use them, its just a little boost to help you start out, and you can go a lot further in developing your understanding of colour if you try and learn to colour without it :D

[cityandking]

1, 12, 14, 18 for dai, minah and vesper!

thank you my dear!! // questions about creating your ocs

1. What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.)? 

DAI — theme. I knew I wanted to play a religious character and I knew there was a very Present religious order in airedon that worshiped the sky gods, so he was initially born out of the concept of this really grounded, rooted, earth-adjacent character looking up at the sun and the sky and loving it and striving towards it. everything else kind of slotted into place from there. MINAH — backstory. it helped that we got a whole bunch of campaign lore (plus just, y'know, there's so much DA lore to work with). I always knew she was gonna be a bit unscrupulous and dissembling and kind of went from there. also, fun fact! she was originally gonna be a he VESPER — name. vesper was born out of the ashes (well, a long period of tweaking and re-consideration) of my first inquisition playthrough, so in a lot of ways I had everything set out in broad strokes, but it wasn't until I had a new name that I really began building a new (and better imo) character.

12. What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: writing, drawing, edits, etc.)? 

ok well besides the fact that I can't draw them the way I wish I could draw them...

DAI — his voice is a little stiff and he doesn't do joy well. every now and then I'll have a thought about something (usually a dairef thing) and I just can't pin him down enough to get into it. this happens less when we're playing, but every now and then he just stalls out. MINAH — the secrets she (and I) must keep. also artistic skill rip (I just want to design warden armor) VESPER — her color palette honestly isn't super conducive to edits. also I started writing her ages ago and sometimes it's hard to get back to her voice; I feel like I use to write her much more easily

14. If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be? 

DAI — first, he's upright in all things: morals, posture, obligation, kindness, vows. everything about him should feel like it's standing solid and straight-backed, like it could take a blow and stay standing. second, beneath all that honor and stalwart truth and hope is a deep well of wryness that he can draw from ad infinitum. it's where the bitchiness comes from MINAH — first, her gut instinct when talking about herself is always to lie or deflect, even when it's completely innocuous. there's usually at least one layer between what she says and what the truth is, even if the lie is only in the presentation or the performance. second, her loyalty goes deeper than she'll admit—she's fond of people and bonds easily, even though she tries to keep them at a comfortable arm's length VESPER — first, she is always ready to set herself on fire rather than see anyone else burn or freeze. she's got a martyr complex and a deep well of determination and the two don't play well together. second, she is so tired. she is so so tired. let her nap

18. What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC? 

DAI — oh lordy. most recent? it's either how hungry he is to know more about his family or how hungry he is to feel solid and real. I made a post a while back about 'how bloody is your OC' and looking back at that I think part of dai's problem in the astral sea is that he hasn't had a chance to get bloody—fighting himself was a good way to get into the meat of things (literally), and the god baby was better because it was tangible change. I think. I'm still trying to get a read on his mental state; he eludes me sometimes MINAH — honestly the cold-blooded mage murder was a surprise to me too VESPER — vesp has been so solid for so long idk what recent thing I've discovered about her. I'm sure I'll have new thoughts and feelings once veilguard drops

[lienwyn]

hi! i love your art!!!!! can you tell us about your OC who is the star for November? i think i read somewhere that he was hard to draw because there was an allure and mystery about him you felt is best captured by words, but he's so intriguing here. that charm/mystery/beauty/magic combo that's devastating

Hi! Thank you so much, darling 💜 And thank you for the question! I admit I hadn't expected anyone to really care about my characters xD

The OC's name is Nightshade. Or, rather, that's the name he chose for himself since he tends to reject his birth name (sometimes he doesn't even know what his birth name is). He's an OC I created back in 2010-2011 and he's gone through quite some variations since then, probably because I've used him in several different roleplays. He's rarely the main character, though, but rather the one I push into play when things need to happen because he will ALWAYS stir shit up, one way or another. Sometimes as the antagonist but, more often than not, as a morally grey third party who does whatever the fuck he wants.

He should probably be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder but, since he's so good at copying emotions and manipulating people, no one can really tell. The only one who DOES know is his not-husband (but also definitely his husband) Acheron Whittemore who is played by @sjazna. Nightshade tends to imprint on Acheron like a duckling the first time he sees him and then just... never leaves him. Ever. Which is fine by Acheron who should probably also be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, but he's so rich that people don't dare to tell him that to his face.

Nightshade and Acheron have that dynamic where literally nothing else in the world matters but the other and they will burn it to the ground if either of them gets hurt.

(A small problem, though, is that Acheron is as thick as a goddamn brick when it comes to emotions so Nightshade usually pines for a minimum of five years — often closer to ten — before Acheron catches on and realises that Nightshade is in love with him. And it usually takes something really dramatic, like either of them almost dying, before he does so. It's so tragic it's kind of hilarious)

Anyway, Nightshade is one of those characters who's very, very versatile. He can fit into almost any setting and, thanks to his habit of manipulating people, he can also weasel his way into almost any plot you can think of. If he wants to be there, he'll be there.

Because aside from the manipulation part, he's also just very charming in general. He's the kind of person who walks into a room and EVERYONE notices. Not because he's necessarily the most conventionally attractive, but because he's good at presenting himself in a way that's very appealing and eye-catching. And that's why I say he's difficult to draw since he's meant to be a character who's incredibly attractive, but it's not just because of how he looks, but also the way he moves and talks and phrases himself. He's very sensual and graceful, and has a confidence and gravitas that's difficult to capture in one still image.

(Basically, writing and roleplaying Nightshade for several years is probably one of the reasons why it's so easy for me to write Kang Yo Han. I've gotten a lot of practice on how to convey that sort of magnetism xD)

Despite being so versatile, there are always some things that remain the same with Nightshade, though, which is that he's an orphan of unknown age and origin, that he chooses the name Nightshade, his preferred professions are sex worker or assassin (sometimes both at the same time because why not?), he always finds Acheron somehow, and he likes to collect people (who aren't Acheron) like they're Pokémon (i.e. he sees them as pets). He is also a Professional Dramatic Bitch who is an expert at copying emotions but throws a tantrum as soon as he has to deal with his own.

So yeah. Nightshade is a Wild Ride (quite literally if you're willing to pay him ;D)

Fun fact: Nightshade is technically non-binary (he/they) but he's so focused on murder and pining after Acheron that he doesn't realise. It doesn't come naturally to him to explore that sort of thing, so unless someone tells him directly about the concept, he usually never understands that about himself. It DOES show in how he dresses, however, since he often mixes what society deems as feminine and masculine without giving a single fuck. It can also be seen in how he insists on picking his own name since the male name he's usually given isn't one he can identify with. He prefers something gender-neutral.

[jhgksixsichjd]

— Transformers OC Infodump !!

( long af w/pictures for motivation to keep reading )

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(( I have no friends who are into Transformers so I'm just gonna share my OC here.. ))

Their name is Tearshot and they are a G1 OC who was created out of my immediate love for Jazz and the need to have a stoic brick of a bot balance out his charismatic personality.

Very early in my watch of G1, I drew an idea I had for a Transformers OC who had a "defect" ( which I later went on to describe as a malformation ) where one of their optics looked like a tear was falling from it. This idea became Tearshot.

At first, Tearshot was essentially this. They were just a normal bot who had a defect and always looked sad. This quickly changed as when I wanted them to be something more unique. Tearshot became much more of an unfortunate bot, an accident happening during their creation that caused their tear malformation and a glitch in their emotional processing system ( I love making stuff up ), this making it difficult for Tearshot to visibly show emotion.

They are able to show some emotion, though it is barely noticeable. Also they can blush, but not too much, because I like blushing yet don't want to disregard their glitch. Essentially, they do feel emotion, they are just unable to show it. And they also have a monotone voice, so they have to rely on body language to convey what they mean.

Beneath all of this, Tearshot really is compassionate, they just tend to feel a bit discouraged as others often misunderstand them.

When I noticed that Tearshot's personality was sounding similar to autism, I decided to make them autistic. ( I'm not sure if I'm wording any of this correctly, but I'm not trying to be offensive )

When coming up with Tearshot's appearance, I struggled. After a quick practice drawing of a basic G1 body, I just went for it. I was drawing up various ideas for what Tearshot could look like, starting with their helm ( head ).

There was no direction whatsoever, I was just looking at various G1 characters and trying to come up with my own thing. I didn't like any of them. Then I finally got something after drawing with pen, something that I thought was going to be a disaster.

I'm not sure how to describe this, but I was pretty satisfied with it at the time. I really enjoyed it. For a bit, like a week, this was what I went with for the look of Tearshot's helm. ( Also for the bottom two drawings, I am referring to @/squidthesquidd's Transformers AU, the squishy baby AU, self-explanatory on what it is. I really like its art for the AU, check it out if you wanna see cool art :3 )

Then I drew up a full body for Tearshot in the style of the squishy baby AU and rambled. ( My handwriting is hard for some people to read, so I'm not gonna scribble any of it out ) I had also figured out an alt-mode for Tearshot: a Lamborghini Countach, except I didn't know that was already Sideswipe's alt-mode along with also being Breakdown's alt-mode. I tried to roll with it and just say it would be a coincidence in-universe, but it bugged me a lot.

By this point I had already developed a special ability for Tearshot. It was originally water abilities ( because tears are water ), I hated it then finally thought of energy absorption to be their actual ability. Energy ( of any kind; like electricity, heat, or even energy from the attacks of others ) can essentially be absorbed by Tearshot and used by them in various ways, mainly for energy blasts.

And for fun, if they absorbed energy but don't use it, then it gets stored in their body, causing them to gain "body fat" because of their stomach-area being made of a stretchy mesh material. ( Mainly because I thought this was a cool idea to imagine what this would be like if there was a figure for Tearshot. Kinda blursed considering what the quality of the 1980's toys was. )

And then I drew a different helm for Tearshot and latched onto it. Been sticking with it ever since and really like it. Also settled on a new alt-mode for them because I refused to have them have the same alt-mode as two other characters. They're a Lamborghini Jalpa now, and as long as it has pop-up headlights, I'm fine with it. ( Insert joke similar to Mia and Tia from the first Cars movie )

( Last image because of the limit on mobile devices )

Remember when I said at the start that Tearshot was created to balance out Jazz's charisma? Yeah, I want to talk more about them and their relationship.

Tearshot and Jazz have known each other for a while, and because of this, Jazz is one of the few who can accurately read Tearshot's emotions. They are both close friends and Tearshot actually likes being around him. ( Another thing about Tearshot: they crave company, they enjoy being in the presence of others. This tends to lead to Tearshot clinging to someone for a while, often without verbally saying so. Jazz is someone who Tearshot mainly clings to. )

Although Tearshot was created by my love for Jazz, their relationship isn't exactly romantic in my version of the "canon" that Tearshot exists in. They are just friends, but I do like exploring the possibilities of where their relationship could go if it was romantic. I think of them having a sun/moon dynamic ( both in a romantic and platonic way ).

Another character Tearshot has a relationship with is Kup, because they are both family members. Tearshot is Kup's ( insert whatever the equivalent of a grandchild is for Transformers ). Kup is also one of the few who can read Tearshot. They like hearing his war stories.

I don't have any digital drawings of Tearshot because I have been mostly sticking to traditional art. The most I have been doing with digital is coloring a traditional drawing to try and find a color palette for Tearshot. A color that I associate with Tearshot is gray-blue, but other than that, I'm figuring everything else out.

That's about all, thanks for reading!

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[beach-illustrations]

Would love to hear your review of Artfol once you've settled in a bit! (Probably wouldn't hurt for me to have a more presentable art archive somewhere either, so I'm curious about the alternatives)

of course!! after using artfol for about a week, i do like it! it's still very new, so i wasn't expecting too much off rip from it but it definitely has some good potential if it gets successful!

putting this under a read more because, as per usual, this got long.

to start: the good stuff! good, robust organization thus far for artists. all the art you post gets automatically put in its own separate tab on your profile called gallery in chronological order and any other art and text posts that you share as well as your own art and text posts get put into another tab called feed. the feed is in chronological order from newest to oldest and it's suuuuper nice being able to have an easy place that contains all your original work people can go to without the hassle of punching in specific tags in a search bar (or inputting them into the website url) and hoping for the best. the feed can then be further organized between posts and art, art submitted to challenges, art submitted to submissions and reshares of other peoples stuff.

you can also make collections for your own gallery, so you can have all your fan art in one collection, ocs in another, etc. this isn't just for personal organization either; your separate collections are displayed under the about section on your profile or, if you've got them, links section! i honestly like this a lot. most of my experience of running an art blog comes from tumblr and getting separate pages set up on your blog, while not horribly difficult, does require a bit of knowledge regarding html and manually inputting website urls where you want the links to go. having all of this steam lined is much better. all of this is relatively easy to figure out as long as you're open to just clicking buttons on the website to see what they do, as far as i could find there's no official tutorial available. you can only have a limited number of these without a premium subscription but i haven't a clue as to what that limit even is.

you can also effectively pin certain art pieces that you're proud of to the top of your gallery by putting them in a featured selection. no idea how to do this yet but i do think this in of itself is neat.

customization is light but they cover the basics well. they've got a nice bio and announcement/secondary heading type feature under your username that you can customize, as well as a nice big space for an icon and a big ol' banner you can put your art in. other than that, you can choose a 'theme color' as artfol calls it but it just determines the color of the bar under your banner as far as i can tell on the website version. they also have a separate area for links that automatically turn into the websites icon you're linking back to.

custom warning tags!!! these fully blur the image and you can put as many words to warn others about the content of the art as you want to clarify what someone's getting into if they click show. at first i was worried i could only put one custom warning on an image but nope, it lets you write multiple warnings on the censored image if the NSFW and Gore filters aren't cutting it for the art.

speaking of which; artfol allows NSFW! in places where online spaces have been getting progressively sanitized because big corporations and google ad sense are the ones who can pay the bills of hosting thousands of images and videos on servers, it's nice to see that.

the challenges! other artists can issue challenges to others to either draw their characters in certain outfits, as certain creatures, drawing a piece of art in your style, etc. think some of the various art memes floating around on twitter, except this time they have their own dedicated category! i haven't done any challenges yet but this seems like a great way to socialize with other artists on artfol, as well as stretch your own art skills.

AI art is explicitly banned.

there is an algorithm however it prioritizes art made recently, so artists of all skill level and mediums get a shot at being seen on the front page which is nice! as far as i can tell, your home feed (which is very similar to tumblr's) is in chronological order and doesn't put in any suggested or recommended posts in the middle of the posts of the people you've chosen to follow. the like and share options are easily accessible and when you share someone else's art, it notifies them by telling them that you've pinged them which is... odd to me, but the website doesn't seem to auto credit them any other way in reshares (in contrast, tumblr keeps the OP's username and icon at the top of their own original post when it gets reblogged). i'm also something of a tumblr hermit so this could be a common reshare (reblog?) format else where for all i know and i'm just griping about nothing.

there is a premium subscription you can sign up for as i mentioned earlier. you get stuff like no ads (which you also get if you've got an adblocker on your browser), more collections can be made, you can upload cover art (icons, i think?) for your collections and the art you post, you can have custom profile theme colors (i guess they let you use the color wheel or a hex code instead of the pre seleced colors they already have?) you get more layouts for your featured art on your profile and you don't have to wait 60 days to change your username. oh, and you can make groups that people can join based around one particular thing, however i haven't touched any groups yet because none of them are all that appealing to me.

honestly, a lot of the premium subscription perks are very inconsequential to the core functionality of artfol which is a huuuuge bonus to the devs in my eyes. they easily could have paywalled commission pages or collections all together and them just giving you some extra customization perks instead shows me that the devs are actually focused on making an artist friendly website and app.

over all, artfol is relatively easy to navigate and upload your art to! the base features are solid however the website does have some downsides.

the bad:

the most egregious thing is that I haven't been able to and currently can't access the content guidelines or privacy policy pages. when I first signed up, artfol gave me a link to what the website claimed was the content guidelines however it just linked me to the news page and that really didn't sit well with me.

because the artfol website is so new, I am going to give them a chance and interpret this in the best faith possible and assume that it seems like this is just an issue of certain pages crashing, seeing as I used to be able to access the News page on artfol and now it's just gone like the other pages. on top of that, it seems like every link except for their twitter, android and apple download links, instagram and discord links at the bottom of the artfol website page is broken in the same way. out of all pages eating themselves the content guidelines and privacy policy ones feel like the worse ones to lose. I haven't been able to access the guidelines from the jump and it's been really frustrating. I just got done sending an e-mail to their contact e-mail, so hopefully something good comes from that. in the mean time i've also downloaded the app to try to see if i can find the guidelines and privacy policy on there. I've noticed people complaining about crashing pages in the mobile app reviews so hopefully this is just a case of a website page accidentally eating itself and it's just very unfortunate coincidence that it happens to be some very important pages affected by the crashes.

other than that, the other downsides are that the website takes like a minute and a half to load, clicking on a censored image to view it on your home feed takes you to the individual post and has you un-censor it there rather than directly from your home feed and some features are currently only available to mobile accounts such as commissions tabs, however i'm sure that will eventually be made available to the website version as well in due time. also, while uploading art, not including the custom censor tag or NSFW or gore filters, you can only put 5 tags on your art. these are all only minor annoyances and i'm sure they'll eventually be fixed in upcoming patches.

over all: asides from some concerning hiccups with missing pages, artfol seems very promising for a relatively new, bare bones website! the developers have very much taken a mobile app first, website later approach which at least to me isn't the end of the world, seeing how the website is already doing okay all things considered. the community seems nice and i'm planning on trying out some challenges soon to get more experience using it!

[softending]

Happy birthday! Love your art and your OCs Henry and Patrick especially, they're some of my favorite original characters I've ever seen online! Even before you publicly posted NSFW art of him, I have thought that Patrick was really hot just from the SFW art on your main account, lol. Having a somewhat similar body type to him myself, as well as finding people who look like that to be very attractive, I really like the way that his character and emotion come through so strongly in the way he carries himself physically! As well as how you highlight his body shape, bulk and chubbiness in ways that aren't as commonly seen on characters meant to be viewed as attractive, but I find really cute and hot. And it comes through in your art that you do as well, in a similar way to how I do, and are very good at expressing it visually! So I am delighted to see that you intend to post NSFW art of these characters as well as more SFW art. Currently following you on Tumblr and have looked at your twitter using Nitter but (no pressure, obviously) would love to see you make a Cohost since Twitter is such an unstable platform and difficult and unreliable to look at without an account, and Tumblr won't allow more explicit sexual art. Regardless, I am very excited to see more of your art!

dude, this is such a lovely message! and thank you for the birthday wishes, too :D

pat's body type is absolutely one of my favorite types to draw. just generally i love emphasizing like, softness and shape and like, naturalness? i love the way bodies drape and fold. it's sexy!! and i'm glad that comes across even in the sfw stuff, seriously. thank you so much!

also, yes, totally re: twitter. with the way things are going over there, i'd definitely like to find a long-term replacement that is fine with hosting nsfw stuff, so i might get some crossposting to a cohost account set up too soon ✌️

[bluebudgie]

2, 6, and 12 for Teva?

@mystery-salad

Hi, thank you for the ask!! Coming right for my newest character :D

Just a heads up, Teva's been floating around in my head as "non-pronouns with left beef" for like 4 months now. For readability's sake I'll use they/them but honest to god I do not know what's up with this Charr's gender. Like. Nothing and everything at once.

Ahem, anyway:

2. Did you design them with any other characters/OCs from their universe in mind? 

Not initially, but fairly soon after their creation I decided they'd be somehow connected to my Charr scrapper Leto! And I believe originally I had previewed a lot of black dyes for their armour's look but then decided to go with a white colour scheme to contrast Leto's really dark design. Also overall it just looked much better, and also fits the character better.

6. Is there any significance behind their eye color? 

That's actually an interesting question for Teva!! The eye colour is one of the very last things I settled on after I had already decided on everything else (minus one shade darker or lighter for the base fur).

My original plan was a pale pink colour for the eyes because it honestly just looked really nice in combination with the rest of the colours. But then there was the blue magic of the Olmakhan horns, and I was starting to have ley energy brainworms again and... yea. Decided for a really bright blue then!

I'm still undecided if blue is Teva's natural eye colour or if it's a result of ley energy experiments. I guess at the very least the magic enhanced the colour (if it didn't change it entirely).

12. What have you found to be most difficult about creating art for your OC (any form of art: writing, drawing, edits, etc.)? 

Honestly I haven't created much yet at all;; I've taken a few screenshots / made some gifs but haven't encountered any specific issues other than me being really bad at getting decent angles of Charr in general.

In general Teva's still a bit of a vague haze of loose concepts and personality traits in my head, I hope to be able to share more in the future!!

[squirrelkiln-art]

Unearthed Revision - Chapter 5 Notes

If you haven’t read Chapter 5 of the Unearthed Revision, read it here! This post is gonna have some behind the scenes details and minor spoilers for the chapter it’s about.

Today went by faster than it should have... But here I am now. Technical difficulties assured I couldn’t post earlier like I wanted to. Chapter 5 is light in notes because I wanted some art to be done already but surprise--technical difficulties. I’ll try and post this weekend about it, mostly some character art and a couple sneak peeks.

Minor spoilers ahead!

Chapter 5 was always intended to be a bit of a breather chapter as well, moreso for the characters than the readers. It also expands on some relationships and characterization as a bit of a buffer among the chaos of the story.

When I first wrote about describing Ben’s barrack I wanted to call back to what I believe is the Omniverse view of his room, though it might have been UAF, where things were disorderly but not dirty or anything along those lines.

His room’s cleanliness is also a reference to Ben’s ADHD/Autism/whatever I coded him as. Probably both. Cleanliness is needed to keep the mind sharper than not but is also incredibly difficult to maintain for ND people. Same goes for Ben.

The various photographs were initially going to be drawn by me (at least a few) when I first made this fic, but I hate drawing group photos.

Tech support, comic relief as they were, also purposely had short roles in this fic because... Well, I have a very iffy relationship with comic relief characters. These two aren’t my favorite comic relief overall.

Graymatter was also going to have a more prevalent role, but I liked the idea of having to go old-school detective on this situation instead of just hacking computers or something.

Like the original one, Chapter 5 is a bit... awkward in timing and word count. Initially all the chapters were, like, 1000 words minimum because that was a lot for me as a sprouting author. (Well, as a sprouting author in the way of actually sharing my works with others other than friends.) I kind of regret not considering repairing the pacing before starting the rewrite but I can’t say it particularly bothers me.

Chapter 5 is the chapter that has the most revisions done within the AO3 page itself. A few hundred words were added and a lot more tweaked, though nothing substantial.

The initial chapter 5, IIRC, never had Max put down the tray of food. It just kinda vanished from mentioning. I didn’t realize that until reworking the fic and it bothered me sooo bad. (In the revision, Max puts it down when he goes to fetch Kevin and Gwen. Problem solved!)

The grimace I mention whenever Tech Support is brought up to people is what I imagine the Ben 10 version of the “Excalibur Face” from Soul Eater is. Just extreme sense of, “oh god, why?” while still being comedic. 

As the top body text in this post mentions, I plan on posting some art for the characters. Nothing too groundbreaking but it’d be fun. Also working on some of the OC work for it as well. Hopefully it comes out well! Also, I’m excited to start sharing the cut diary entries. Thanks for reading if you got this far! (As of writing, I don’t think anyone has besides me. Oh well!)

[vonkarma2]

1, 23, 27 for the oc questions?

This contains super old drawings so I’m putting it under a cut, beware my middle school art. Thanks for asking these were fun to answer :)

1. Your first OC ever?

I’ve answered a similar question to this a couple of times before, and I mentioned like the ocs I made when I was like 8 years old. This time, I wanted to use like my first legit developed OC who I put effort into building as a character (this was when I was 13-14), but I wanted to put a specific drawing of her that I was really proud of at the time and I couldn’t find the notebook it was from, so maybe another time. Instead, here’s my wings of fire OC I made when I was 11. Her name is Bobcat and I did not put any effort into building her personality at all unfortunately. 

From this image I assume she was nice, but who is to say. I like talking about really early ocs though bc sometimes there’s not even a concept I just drew a person with random shapes on their face or outfit and then like an out of context line of dialogue and that was it. It’s also like fun to see the ideas I came up with that I have NO memory of whatsoever. I made a couple of sparkledog type characters and drew them each once and never again. I had no idea I ever did that it was news to me

As you can see the one on the left is fire themed (he was a supervillain) and the one on the right is technology themed (superhero). I found this context from the writing on the page which I cropped out bc it is dialogue I wrote at age 12

23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would be like?

Ok let’s see I’ve talked abt Angel and Gloria before so who’s left… I don’t think I’ve talked abt Daisy before. The like cyberpunk style characters originated as an idea for a DND campaign I had, and then decided to write out instead. However, I only came up with like one character, so I abandoned the idea. Coming back to it like 8 months later, I made it sci-fi themed instead. The first character I had like solidified was Remy, who was a pop star basically. For some reason, I later on came up with an incredibly similar idea of a like super rich diva girl type. Not only was this almost exactly the same as him, the design was also very very difficult to draw. So I was like ok this isn’t working so I redrew the character a couple of different ways, and one of them was like a repairman type character with super curly hair, who I thought looked cool, so I basically replaced everything abt the character (personality name gender backstory) except narrative role + role in the heist itself (<it was a heist at the time it’s not anymore).

Also Anjara was originally an ace attorney oc (<from when I knew absolutely nothing abt ace attorney but I had seen objection funk) with like a smug personality but then became like a samurai type personality instead.

27. Any OCs that were inspired by a certain song? 

Yes. Many. An embarrassing amount. My creative process is essentially listening to a song I like that doesn’t have anything to do with any of my ocs, so I come up with a new oc  to channel the emotion through. To better enjoy the song. I don’t do this as much now though because 1) I already have a lot of different ocs to cover various song types 2) I’m better at developing characters from nothing I would say. But enough abt that let’s get into specific songs.

every like sci fi oc I have: daft punk around the world/harder better faster stronger from alive 2007

Laura: Dynasty by rina sawayama 

Saida: Grace Kelly by Mika. She’s totally different from her original characterization. It used to be like she had no sense of identity and now she’s like, the complete opposite of that LOL

Melanie: baby one more time by Britney Spears, not because her character had anything to do with the song whatsoever, but because at the time I had a bunch of ocs that were just like visual designs made for fight scenes I would choreograph in my mind. To songs. So her design, but not personality, was one of the ones I made for this. Later on it was Honey I’m Home by Destroy Boys

Tane: The Pop Team Epic OP and also Ironina by nilfruits

Aurelia: Wonder What She Thinks of Me by Chloe x Halle, which is interesting in that that song has a very specific and obvious story which the character here has pretty much nothing to do with. Vibes I guess and massive recontextualization

Henry: Friends in Low Places by Worthikids even more egregious than the above since that’s literally a character song abt an ocs backstory. It was also very recontextualized

Luke: Electric Feel Justice Remix

^This is all a little embarrassing to admit, but I’m not going to lie on ocs ask memes I take ocs very seriously. Also I like how it said “an OC” and I just completely ignored that

[plagueislost]

Hii, for the artist ask game: number 4 and 10 is something I'd love to know :3

i wrote A LOT for this ask, sorry! i wanted to do the questions justice, yknow how it is.

4. piece you wish got more love?

Ive found from experience that original art tends to not do very well on social media, which kind of makes me sad. It's not much of a problem for me (because most of the stuff i post is fanart anyways) but i can't help but think that part of the reason i rarely ever draw original pieces or make OCs is because of the lack of feedback i get on social media. I know tumblr is supposed to be the fandom website, and maybe id have a different experience on another site, but it is disappointing when i post something original that I'm very proud of and it barely manages to get more than 20 notes, whereas something i like less easily surpasses 100 just because of the tags i put on it. i think the most recent example of this is this piece, which admittedly did get quite a few notes for an original piece, but definitely would have gotten more had it been fanart of the same caliber. this is also not to blame anyone or make anyone feel bad about not reblogging original art (god knows im guilty of that too, and art piggybacking off the popularity of other works of art are of course gonna get more notes), its just something ive noticed from my time on social media.

10. how do you deal with artblock?

i dont get art block very often, but when i do, its ANNOYING. it mostly manifests in me having a bunch of motivation for a part of my process that i cant get to without doing the stuff i have no desire to do (does that make any sense?). like, ill have a strong urge to render an artwork, but no ongoing WIPs that are at that stage, meaning i would have to sketch and color and shade a whole new piece before i could satiate that urge, or do the steps out of order which could mess up the flow and end look of a project. when i get like this, i find its best to try and translate those desires into different activities and take a step away from art. for example:

if i want to sketch, but nothing comes out right digitally, ill find a scrap piece of paper and a crappy pen and make thumbnails until i cant think of any other iterations of the ideas in my head. if one of them turns out good, ill take a picture and transfer it into my software, but only go over it a day or so later so i can have fresh eyes.

if i want to color, but i have no sketches currently ready for coloring, ill go into my photo editing program, find some random old photos that i never edited, and post-process them until i get something im happy with.

if i want to shade, but have no colored artworks ready for that, ill usually do a study of a photo ive taken, because most of the time me shading is really me wanting to see how light and shadow interact in certain scenarios. i actually did a whole AP portfolio on that because i liked shading and lighting so much!

if i want to render, but ive got no pieces ready for rendering, i find its easiest just to find a tedious activity where i can be a perfectionist but also feel like im the smartest person in the world. this generally turns into me cooking some big meal because its constantly engaging but also not that difficult. i know its probably weird for it to not have anything to do with art but this is just what works best for me, and i get the bonus of a nice meal at the end of it!

if i get the more classic kind of art block where everything sucks and nothing i make is good, i find its best to go back to the media that inspires me to make art, and not worry too much about having made something by the end of it. generally the media that inspires me ends up, well, inspiring me, and i can remind myself that art is a voluntary practice that i do because its fun, not because i want something out of it. if it doesnt manage to inspire me, thats okay, i can just tell myself im taking a break and live life for a bit.

i hope that was helpful, and i really enjoyed answering these questions! if anyone else wants to ask a question, the artist ask game is here.

[erythristicbones]

✍️ and 💪?

I'm gonna add commentary to this for funsies. Thank you for the ask!!

✍: Top 5 Hardest to Draw/Write OCs

1. The Grimm

While she isn't the hardest to write, oh my GOD is she hard for me to draw. I went through so many different concepts for her and even now, I'm not 100% happy with her current look. I've just accepted it's the closest I can get to what I imagine with my current skill level. And hoo boy did it take me ages to fuckin forever to draw her the 2 times I've done so so far 🤣

2. Novlayne

The opposite of the Grimm- Nova isn't supremely difficult to draw, but to write? I'm gonna have to do half of IOTA's chapters from her POV and it's already proving immensely difficult in the bare bones outline currently. How am I supposed to write from the POV of a serial killer trying very hard to convince everyone she's not a serial killer?? Trying to nail down her writing voice is decidedly Not Fun At All

3. Bronwyn

Bronnie is only mildly difficult to write, cause she's a lot more suave and confident than I am. Doable, but I second-guess her dialogue more than anything. Also, I will openly admit that I struggle heavily with drawing more feminine characters and especially so with chests/boobs. Bronnie is definitely a project in learning how to overcome those hang-ups- given her two designs are "very femme with visible cleavage" and "very masc, still with visible cleavage". Ma'am you're so attractive and I like your looks, but I cannot do you justice at this point in time

4. Astrid (and/or Ambrose)

Astrid has the above problems (more feminine appearance) paired with having a lot of little details to said outfit. Dresses are hard to draw 😔 While I adore the themes I've got going with her outfit, goddamn does any art with her have half a billion layers to make it all come together nicely. Also, I forget which brushes I use for certain features on top of that lmao

Ambrose has the same difficulty problems as his sister, but to a lesser extent cause I'm a pro at drawing pants. All of my ocs would wear pants if I stayed within my comfort zone

5. Declan

Now this asshole.....she's a very weird case. Cause, yeah, I created her as her own separate character once upon a time before her debut as TOTLR's villain. The problem is that TOTLR is very heavily based upon the abuse I went through as a child and Declan became...a LOT like my abusive mother to fit that narrative. I love Declan as a character, but sometimes writing her can send me spiraling down emotionally bc she triggers my PTSD still

💪: Top 5 Easiest to Draw/Write OCs

1. Kirsen

KIRS MY BELOVED <3 Kirsen is, quite literally, the easiest OC I've ever had to write for. She's a lot like both myself and the person I want to be. Writing her comes as naturally to me as breathing.

2. Cassandra

While Cass' personality isn't actually all that similar to mine, she does have the exact same trauma I do. That's my best guess as to why writing her just flows from me like water? Idk man, some of my favorite things I've ever written have been about Cass and she's very near and dear to me

3. Josephine

My most traumatized kiddo gets the gift of being both easy for me to draw AND write!! Very simple designs that I can usually manage w/o using any of her references at all. She's also so damn interesting to write for that I just can't seem to stop, despite her not even being the main villain of Momentum

4. Tyreen

No long explanation here, Ty just has a simple design. Only difficulty is that I keep forgetting her glasses 🤟😔

5. Natalie

Same as above, Nat's super easy to draw!

[original ask meme here]

[pengosolvent]

Why can you make all that stuff for Flora and things like Art Fight but not OC anymore? Genuinely curious don’t mean to be rude.

It's a good question honestly, and one I am trying to untangle still

I will put this under a readmore, since I will be wordy under the assumption you do genuinely want to know my thoughts and feelings here

I actually have been making OC things, I just do not share them So, what ends up posted online is stuff that isn't my original work, but it doesn't mean that original work isn't being worked on at all

I just… have a lot of anxiety over sharing my characters People have treated me in ways that have hurt my connection to them… So I end up feeling like I cannot really post them very easily

I work on my projects but very slowly, because I encounter pain and try to understand where it's coming from and why

Talking about it honestly feels vulnerable, because I don't know how to really share the feeling of pain that I feel in relation to my OCs and how people act about my original work, so I feel a bit like I am complaining over nothing

Sometimes, people tend to treat original content as though it just… appears. And they can do whatever they want with it, without thinking about who made it or why

It can feel… painful in a way where people care about my OCs but not me… It feels like I don't matter, just what people can "use" from me matters I understand logically this isn't really the impression that people want to give off, and for the most part most people don't even realize this is a thing

But I've encountered this even from a young age, when I was a teen and people did things like get upset with me over my own characters not fitting what they wanted

I encounter it very… frequently…

I feel like I anticipate people thinking I'm overreacting or just too sensitive to this sort of thing… I have often been told I just need to ignore things like this, ignore things that hurt me if they appear too complcated or "small"

But that's just led to this huge build up of small cuts that make OC work so difficult for me

It feels hard to want to share original work when I anticipate that if I get hurt, I can't talk about it and whoever hurt me won't care Because if thats how it feels, then it… feels like I just exist to perform And I don't want my work to be a performative thing I want my work to feel sincere from me

I am honestly in pain a lot over not being able to share my OCs without deep anxiety and pain

I had drawn my first comic when I was 5, and it meant a lot to me to do so I still want to draw more longterm stories though I don't understand why I feel a deep importance to my stories though I also don't understand why

It feels meaningless on some days, but I still try to draw

Artfight was an experiment to try to see how much I could draw in a short time span If my issue was drawing itself, or my OCs

I also wanted to see how I would feel getting art of some OCs

I'm… very slow emotionally. I'm working through a lot I say that often but it's true

Flora stuff is easier because it doesn't touch the same sort of pain feeling that my OCs cause me … Since it's not my world, it is my friend's I guess it feels a little bit like training wheels? Like, working on story things without the level of pain that working on my OC stuff has, lets me compare and contrast the response I have emotionally

It lets me try to understand what's happening internally for me via having something to compare to

This might not make sense to you much, but I am trying to be as sincere as I can in this response… without writing for hours haha…

I work on my original things, but they're longterm or I just feel like they don't live up to whatever was in my head, and I end up feeling self-hatred and not postng things

I have felt… deeply alone in regards to my characters for a long time Trying to work through that involves working through a lot of feelings I thought were just "normal" to feel, or anxieties I thought were just me being crazy, but actually came from places I got hurt

I am aware that I expect pain and have for years and years And I would really like to figure out how to get back to when I felt joy from drawing and sharing my characters I would like to heal whatever is broken that causes this response in me

There's an idea that suffering helps artists, or suffering is where True Art comes from or something

Suffering doesn't… actually help me make art Being true to my emotions and vulnerable is what helps me make art At times, one can be vulnerable when they are suffering… but… I guess I've crossed that line a bit Where my suffering just started to make me more and more closed off from my feelings, and it's hard to access them now very well

I am struggling to connect to my feelings with my characters, because they have been, for the longest time, representations of my feelings that ended up then getting hurt over and over by people online (some well meaning but unaware of how their actions could land, some actively meaning to hurt me, and everything inbetween)

I don't want to ignore my pain anymore I don't want to

So I am trying to take it slow with things I know are fragile relating to my characters

I guess the problem is… It feels hard to be myself with them It feels hard to feel like I'm not performing for an audience who consumes media and doesn't think about hte artist I know not every person online is like that, and I know some people online are just young, but emotionally, I 've encountered it enough that it's hard not to feel like I have to prepare for getting hurt

That sucks It sucks to want to share something I made with care and expect a deep thoughtlessness in return Even if I don't get a thoughtless response, the fact that I expect one already exhausts me… So it's a weird internal thing

I would like for it to be easy to focus internally on my own meaning and post stuff and just not let weird remarks or actions affect me, but… It isn't easy

And I don't want to be unaffected either… I want to feel things from people Trying to ignore things just made it so that I couldn't feel the positive stuff either

I don't feel a lot most of the time when people say I'm inspiring… because I can't register what it means anymore Because I've had people say I'm inspiring and then they just wanted to use me I've had people get angry and lash out at me over my original work, so it's so… hard to… know how to handle

I want to be able to feel what people feel from my work, to share in it, but it's hard when I've also had so many engagements that try to mold me into what they want

I just hold a lot of sadness with my characters… And it feels like it's hard to talk about Because it's a sadness at the way the internet treats original work as a whole Which sometimes feels so impossible to work with or change

People fall back on things like "It's the internet, get over it" as though that means anything People… act like they don't want to understand other people That's painful My work… It's all about trying to understand people and myself

So when people say these sort of things but then also act like they like my work… It's… What are they really getting from my work? They just like the pictures and not my feelings?

Sorry, I'm rambling

I hope this makes sense and that you can understand

I do want to post more, to be able to feel hope and care and connection in sharing my work I would like to work towards that and am working towards that

So I guess… I can "make all that stuff" for things that aren't my original characters because it feels like steps on a very long staircase to get back to working on my original characters in a healthier way

It's connected to trying to make original work for me, even if it might seem disconnected from a distance

Anyway time for me to go to bed Good night, I hope your day or night goes well --- edit: i woke up and talked about this with some friends and realized i still removed some of my feelings I replied to this from a perspective of just working in the framework of “trying to prove its rational for me to do things other than OCs” but I didn’t really talk about how this ask made me feel nor how it feels for things to be... compared  it feels like flora and artfight were put down a bit in your ask, though i understand you said you were genuinely curious and didn’t mean to be rude  I guess it feels like ... saying “all that stuff” for flora and art fight implies... something kind of strange 

“all that stuff” implies, to me, a comparison of amount, as opposed to focusing on things other than OCs  i guess it feels like not considering that me posting things is different than me making things it reduces my existence to just.. what i post online  which feels like i only exist to you as what i post online which on one hand makes sense, since you dont know me IRL, but it doesnt feel like considering i do stuff that i DON’T post  i cant word it well i don’t want to attribute malice to you, but it did feel strange  but ultimately... I wanted to do things for artfight, i wanted to be able to draw things and try to have fun, i am happy when others are happy that i have drawn for them I also want to do things for flora, i enjoy talking to glip and exploring feelings in characters and storylines  we had a really painful past, and being able to heal from that and work together again is really meaningful to me  i value it immensely as its own thing, in addition to it helping me emotionally re: OCs the ability to believe in change is important, even if it takes a long time  i want to do things with my OCs more, to post them more, but it is hard when there is a lot of pain  so i am trying to trust in the ability for that to change  when i work on other things, it matters to me, but it doesnt mean i’ve forgotten my stories or OCs 

[fountainpenguin]

Hi, another update. Mentioned a while ago that my laptop was no longer functional- I’m still working towards replacing that with something new. Also got a new desktop computer (Replaced a device I’ve had for nearly a decade + transferred lots of files over). Going through lots of changes (Job switch, sibling got married, got a new office, also some other things I don’t want to go into detail about on Tumblr).

No longer have access to my old art program, but I planned ahead for that and bought a new program while it was on sale, so I’ll be experimenting with that in the upcoming weeks. Expect Happy Peppy Gary art. Might be some 130 Prompt spoilers in it but at this point I frankly don’t care, I’ve been actively planning and drafting the 130 since 2016 and I’m anxious to draw for some of the major plot stuff skljdf. My hyperfixation for the last several months has been War & Peace / Great Comet of 1812 and :’) “Pierre & Andrey” is a very good song for a lot of my OCs but also for Gary and the Pixies, I swear...

May also draw some Chloes and Kevins and others. Possibly Dame Sandy, some Longwood, and maybe some Commelina because I read through all the remaining Origin chapter drafts and stuff hit me hard and I cry, idk. I’m wasp dad trash and I’m really excited to share more Origin.

Basically I’m straight-up tired of living in fear of judgment so I hope you’re all ready to remember that this is my house and in this house I post what I want.

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Don’t really have the emotional strength to talk to anybody, but I’ve been reviewing my ‘fics. I really want to put the next Reedfilter Rules chapter out- been sitting on that one for a very long time. Writing RR!Anti-Cosmo is extremely difficult but... wow, I often love him more than Riddleverse Classic Anti-Cosmo SKLDFJSKLDJF. In Classic he’s often bound by social status and tradition while RR!Anti-Cosmo straight-up does what he wants and it’s fantastic. I know I’ve been picking at the revisions for his chapter for ages, but he has to be perfect when he goes public because he's very different from Classic!Anti-Cosmo and I want everything to be /chef’s kiss for me.

If you’re new here and/or not up to date with Reedfilter canon, I encourage you to check the Reedfilter Rules tag on my blog and maybe learn some interesting things you didn’t know yet :> RR is an AU of my Classic take on canon, but it remains consistent with show canon and it’s full of dumb cliches and dumb flirting and political idiots and it’s just silly and fun for me.

Should be some Frayed Knots and Origin on the horizon as well, so thank you for your patience. I am extremely anxious to move both stories along and there’s not much left to do before I post, but I’m finicky and want to ensure my buffer is stable before I return to a consistent schedule. Fingers maybe crossed for going back to our one chapter a week schedule, but not promising that yet. We’re entering my favorite part of Origin, but it coincides with the most difficult part of Knots, so it’s a struggle.

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Emphasizing again that I basically have not been keeping up with reviews, Tumblr notifs, or FFN / AO3 commentary for a very long time. I thank you for sending them and apologize if you were waiting for a response you didn’t receive. Life is kind of stressful and people always need me for something, so at the end of the day I don’t always want to build up the emotional strength to search my inbox and read comments for my different stories/fandoms that might not always be nice, and even if they are nice then I don’t always have the ability to reply. Sometimes it’s easier to look at nothing and sometimes those avoidance periods need to last a long time. I appreciate any kind words that have been sent my way.

I’ve been extremely busy and still have not watched the FOP live action spin-off thing. I’ve kept my distance from fandom content and successfully avoided spoilers all this time, but I’m planning to watch it very soon now that life is starting to come back under control. I watched the first episode and enjoyed it, but blocking out enough time to binge on free trial isn’t easy and suddenly most of the year goes by... Exhaustion.

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Vainly hoped I’d return to Tumblr someday and find that the divider line and/or abilities to create white space dividers with the enter key had returned to the post editor and wow I cannot express enough how disappointed I am that they have done exactly not that.

Sorry for Ask box stuff I haven’t touched in one million years; just didn’t have FOP brainpower for a long time and needed to do other things. There are some heavy topics like war, abuse, politics, discrimination, death, and affairs in my ‘fics and sometimes you need space from that type of content even when you’re the one who put it there.

If anyone knows whether Tumblr still refuses to show posts that contain links, I’d be interested in knowing more about the current situation.

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tl;dr - Sorry I can’t engage in long talks; holding conversation via back and forth writing has always been draining on my emotions and frankly everyone should just call me /lh

‘fic updates starting soon? Hoping to get a buffer up, thank you for your patience while the Creature Crossing ARPG has been getting all my love on dA. Anxious to see my fairy kids again, though. 

More updates on fanfic schedule to come. Will probably post new FOP chapters on Fridays once it’s mid October. Further details to come.

[azazelsconfessional]

((so i was gonna open up my askbox again but I got distracted doing this and watching streams i think idr what i did the past few hours, buuut there's something I need to cover first, especially since there are so many new people around! Hello! Especially since so many of you are playing OCs/MCs.

Don't worry, it's a tip to hopefully help you along! It may get a little long, especially as I try and provide examples. . .but hopefully it'll help.

I'm gonna talk a lot about OCs but this applies to canon characters too a bit. It certainly helps.

Tl;dr, you should have a character profile page.

(also remember that tumblr mobile doesn't really have direct access to Pages made with the Pages function on desktop, so you'll have to link them manually in your pinned or description or host them on another site(I used Google Docs in the apst) or in a regular post(this makes it very easy to lose as a forewarning) for maximum accessibility!)

(rules pages are also really really handy if you have alot of resteictions.)

So, in general, OCs have a bit of a lower reception rate in rp. Idk if that'll be the case here with MCs because they're, well, the main character. Housamo is also a series that lends itself well to OCs pretty well, especially non-human ones, but I figured I'd warn for that.

BUT. That doesn't mean you shouldn't play an OC! It just means there are things you need to keep in mind!

Think of all of the OCs you've seen--you all seem to be fun and wonderful people, and your characters are surely interesting. But. . .if you don't tell anybody about them, nobody will know what's going on or where to start, which makes asking questions a little hard, right? That's easier to work around with MC characters--we've played the game, we know the story, we know the characters, so we can figure out questions fairly easily based on that alone and go from there.

But with other OCs, especially those that don't represent charactera from mythology or fiction like many other characters in housamo do, there's like. Nowhere to start. We may see a face or some dialogue, but otherwise we don't have a frame of reference.

That's where a profile comes in!

Azazel-mun, I don't want to share all of the info about my character at once!

What if I don't know everything about my OC yet and want to figure it out along thw way?

The profile doesn't have to be super detailed! At most it shoule include things like the character's name and age and probably things like their location, profession, grade in school or place of work, etc., and anything you'd notice on the surface like their apperance. It's never a bad thing to include a description of their personality too, or a small section about their history/background. Little things that even you should probably know, too.

You can also section your profile off a bit into things like "surface info," "meta info," "things you could easily figure out about them," etc. That way, no one can spoil themself. Making lists like this can help you think these things through if you haven't already as well.

Let's use Azazel, a character that you probably know already, as an example here. I don't have a profile set

Name: Azazel

Species: Fallen Angel; Capra Therian - an anthropomorphic Goat (?)

Gender(pronouns): Male(he/him)

Age: difficult to calculate; several thousand years old?

Apperance age: hard to say, he's not human. Adult.

Origins: banished from his home world of Eden, has been in the human world for several thousand years

Profession: Priest of dubious denomination, most likely Catholic or Protestant; teacher at Daikanyama Academy; de facto head of the Missionaries Non-Profit charity Organization; supervisor of the Aoyama Missionaries

Role & Rule: Watcher; Revelation - allows him to see anything within the territory of the Aoyama Missionaries and anywhere the pages of his Artifact see

Apperance: Azazel is a 5'10"(180cm) tall, anthropomorphic goat of ambiguous breed, with fawn fur all over his body and lighter fur on his head and around his neck. He has brown, riged horns which curve out and back. Though his eyes are often closed, when opened they're red. He always carried around a leather bound bible with an eye on the cover, and is never seen without several chains on his person, although only the one(s) around his neck can be seen unless he's undressed.

He wears a black priest's cassock with a maroon sash and a capelet of the same color, with the same eye as on his bible on the shoulders of the cape, and brown dress shoes. The front of the robe is always open to expose his bare chest and the chains beneath.

Personality: Azazel is kind and doting, very fitting of both a teacher and priest, although his openly flirtatious, lustful, and secretive nature causes others to distrust him. He doesn't mind this at all. He has a strong adoration for humans, and values love in all of its forms more than anything. He's a bit of a passive person, often being unmotivated but working hard regardless, and seems to prefer to watch others and the world go by, although he won't decline most invitations to take part in it. He is always aware of anything that happens within the extensive territory of the Missionaries, and seems to know and see just about everything about anyone he meets, from their surface to their soul. . . .

If you know Azazel, or take note of some of the wording or question marks, you'll note I didn't explain everything(although I may have shared more than you want to.) This is just a bare bones exampe of how I do my profiles--but it can get even more bare!

I'll do two this time, a more vague version of Azazel's, and another that obscures information all together, using the same or a similar format to the above.

Name: Azazel

Species: anthropomorphic goat

Gender(pronouns): male (he/him)

Age: unquestionably an adult

Origins: Eden

Profession: Priest; teacher; head of a charity NPO; member of the Missionaries

Apperance: Horned goatman of slightly above average human height. Light brown fur, blond fur-hair, red eyes. Wears priest robes and a gold chain around his neck and chest. Carries around a bible with an eye on it?

Personality: Kind of eerie, but friendly and affectionate. A little flirtatious, especially towards humans. Seems to know everything about people for some reason?

Compare it to the one before--see how I've left even more things off or left things ambiguous while still sharing what's necessary or surface level? However, it's also not as engaging or as informative as the other one where I gave more information.

As someone who plays him, profiles like this aren't as helpful for me lol since he knows so much about everyone and everything, having a lot of details helps me play my character!

Now, as helpful as this is, this is also a character you probably know. So how about I do this with an OC? Normally I'm extremely detailed in my profiles and such, especially for OCs, sharing headcanons and ideas for relationships between characters. But, again, I'll try and show how you can show some info while leaving some up to people to ask about to later be filled in.

Name: Kezia

Faceclaim/Art Source: [this is where you would put where you get the art for any icons you use--if you draw it yourself, say so; if you use official art from a series, credit the name of the character and the series; if you use picrews, link the specific picrews. DO NOT USE ART YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PERMITTED TO USE. DO NOT STEAL ART. IF YOU CAN'T FIND THE CREDIT, ASK SOMEONE TO HELP YOU, DO NOT JUST SAY THAT IT ISN'T YOURS. DO NOT USE ART YOU HAVE NOT BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO USE OR THAT ISN'T FROM A SERIES OF SOME SORT.]

Species: Human

Gender(pronouns): Female (she/her)

Age: mid 20's~early 30's?

Apperance age: older than she looks?

Origins: Tokyo?

Profession: Professor; Witch

Apperance: A fidgety woman who looks older than she is. She looks anxious and confused as often as she looks curious and confident. Wavy light brown hair. Often carries around schoolbooks and is never alone, always with a Rattus Therian and often with a Nyarlathotep.

Personality: seemingly anxious, but curious and exploratative nonetheless. On the awkward side, but can still keep up with the Nyarls that accompany her. Gets into trouble when she gets ahead of herself in exploring and learning about the arcane, but her Rule allows her to disappear easily.

History: Has always been curious about magic and attempted to run through a Gate when they began to open up. Performed a summon and brought a certain transients to Tokyo and recieved her familiar and the magic to use her Rule as a result. Currently teaches at a college. She stumbled into a certain someone while attempting to explore time, and became a fan ever since.

That tells you a fair amount, doesn't it? Even for someone you don't know? It may even raise some questions that you could ask. At the same time, it doesn't tell you that much, and that can be as much of a hindrance for coming up with questions as saying too much can. It's really up to you what's too much and too little. Here's a more detailed version! Some things have been left vague or confusing in such a way that they could be filled in after being revealed through asks and play. That way, people are encouraged to/given ideas of what to ask--and you can still share things in the long run.

Name: Kezia

Faceclaim/Art Source: [N/A]

Species: Human

Gender(pronouns): Female (she/her)

Age: mid 20's~early 30's?

Apperance age: somewhere in her 30's, maybe even a little older

Origins: Tokyo, with some sort of connection to at least one other world

Profession: Professor of [?] at [?] Academy; Witch

Role & Rule: [?] & [?]

Artifact, Summon, Familiar?: Always accompanied by at least one Nyarlathotep and some sort of man-rat? She also carries around a book that's labeled as a Grimoire, but it's rare for someone to be both a summon-user and an Artifact-user. . . .

Apperance: A fidgety older woman wearing a labcoat and a witch's hat. She looks quite stressed and has trouble sitting still. Her ashy brown hair is thin and a little wavy, with some strands of gray. Although she often squints, she doesn't wear glasses. She carries around a lot of books relating to maths and sciences and one labeled 'Grimoire' decorated with arcane symbols from Gehenna and Old Ones. She's always accompanied by at least one Nyarlathotep and a very short, bearded man who can best be described as a brown rat therian with a human-like face. Sometimes there's a normal rat on her person or in her pockets.

Personality: Kezia is a fidgety and anxious magic practitioner. She's very curious about other worlds and has been since the Gates appeared in this Tokyo since she was a child, however she has been pursuing magic before then. She often appears somewhat confused about or fascenated by even her usual surroundings, but, at other times moves through the world with confidence even in unfamiliar territory. She also likes rats and other rodents, and as such will often avoid felines and birds of prey. She has a tendency to disappear, seeming to walk through walls despite assuredly being alive.

She's a little bit awkward with people, but somehow keeps up with Nyarlathoteps nonetheless. She's a good teacher, once she figures out how to explain things in ways others can understand easily, but can be a bit difficult to follow and flighty up until then. Aware of this, she's rather patient, if a little down on herself at times. However, she most often simply has her mind elsewhere. Despite this and the company she keeps, she's relatively sane. . .most of the time.

She shares a name with a witch from the world of Old Ones who made a pact with Nyarlathotep, believing him to be the Devil. . .and the ratman always at her side uses the same name as that witch's familiar as well. It's. . .probably just a coincidence. . .who would rightfully make a pact with Nyarlathotep?

History: Kezia is an adult human from this Tokyo before the apperance of the Gates and construction of the Walls. She's explored various witchcraft pursuits since she was a child, with what was originally a mere imaginative curiosity and fascination. After the arrival of the Gates when she was still young, she snuck over the fences built around one and attempted to go inside the massive pillar of light, which she attributes to the reason she often seems to struggle with her vision. Several years later, she performed a successful summon and she recieved her familiar, Brown Jenkin, transformed into a somewhat therian form from one of her pet rats, and was given some powers from Nyarlathotep. She has no discernable control over any of the chaotic creatures, however they seem to spend time around her regardless.

At present she's a professor of a subject that interests her at a certain college. She's had other dangerous run-ins due to her excitement over the arcane and "darker" arts, but doesn't seem to show any signs of stopping. However, after an incident in an attempt to explore time itself, she encountered a certain guardian of time and feels reluctant for once to explore it further. . .although she's become quite a big fan of his.

. . .i ran out of steam amd kinda lost track of where i was going. idk if that helped at all really. But maybe it did! I hope it did. You don't need to use any of those things exactly by any means, but that's the kind of thing you usually see in profile pages. Basics like someone's name and birthday and age and apperance and a little about their personality, maybe some history. Oftentimes things like powers and weapons and the like. Interests, hobbies, ways they could be intereacted with, etc. Just stuff that'd help you know the character.

I write everything in paragraph form, but everyone is more than welcome to use a more script format. I love making profiles, myself--it really helps to think about the character and details about them. Normally I make really, really detailed profiles, but maybe I'll try and be more simple about it this time around. depends on how i'm feeling.

I know this seems weirdly hypocritical given I don't have one but when I first made this blog there were like four of us including myself. I didn't see the need for a rules or profile page because I didn't anticipate that there'd be so many of us or, like, people from other fandoms or who aren't familiar with certain characters. I'll rectify that soon hopefully. But I figured I'd pass along this idea/knowledge to others.

. . .I'm gonna go reopen my askbox now. Feel free to send asks again, ask about this, etc! You can send me an IM too if you want. I'll properly close up the guest event tomorrow. I'm real tired rn lol so idk how much i'll get done, but i usually do things super late at night my time, so i have some time to pull my shit together haha))