#they didn't talk about their workflow or behind the scenes much

[eekonis]

When professionals talk about their workflow 😍

When professionals talk about job opportunities they got because they have connections in the industry💀

[stardustneeko]

As promised, here's the process video for my YGO Rare Pairs Mini Bang piece. I feel like this event always gets me to push myself beyond my limits (or maybe it's Tealshipping ;-P). A lot of attention and care went into this piece, so I want to talk about it a bit.

(Extensive yapping under cut)

As with many of my works, it started with a song. Pretty much the entire aesthetic direction of this piece was inspired by it, specifically this lyrics video.

I started with a thumbnail with pencil on paper because I'm astonishingly near-sighted and can only determine a good composition at a very specific size.

Fun fact: This thumbnail was very likely jotted down on company time :D

Then I traced it onto CSP and started with the values sketch. Since the song/lyrics video provided a very clear vision, I worked out the light sources pretty quickly. Some things I kept in mind:

The elements in this piece should suggest that we are looking at this scene through Johan's eyes. That's why Ryo's eyes are closed, and Johan's seeing a different version of "himself" in the mirror.

Because of this, the lighting scenarios for the outside world and the mirror world are completely different: the outside world is hazy, sensual, the mirror world is stark and eerie. "Yami" Johan has sharper features than "normal" Johan, and he's cast in colder light. The "real" world, on the other hand, would have warmer tones. (I feel like I didn't push this enough tbh).

The main light source comes from windows off-screen. I was very particular about the way it hits Johan's face and cast most of it in shadow. In contrast, l wanted most of Ryo to be in the light. It's kinda unrealistic, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The light from the windows also helps illuminate the background. Specifically it reveals the one piece of furniture necessary to deduce the rest of the story ( ͈ര ̫��� ͈) ⊹`𓈒

There is a rim light from a lamp hidden behind Ryo. This helps sets the characters apart from the dark background and suggest more depth, especially in the areas of darkest shadow.

The process I currently use is one I adapted from kuroshiro's, with a few tweaks. First, I separated the piece into parts, and coloured them on separate layers with their base colours. Then, I added new clipped layers to each part, set to Multiply or Overlay as necessary, and rendered on those layers. This workflow helps me think clearly about what I need to do next, and easily come back to fix mistakes later on. It also allows me to pause at certain points and play with different lighting/colour schemes, just to make sure I like the direction I'm going in. It's a labour-intensive way of working, with a lot of cognitive power expended on pre-planning and layer management, but it's very effective if you like to problem-solve on the fly.

This scar on Johan's neck has a lot of symbolic significance in the story of this piece (read the accompanying fic to find out why), and so does Ryo kissing it. I wanted to make sure the way I posed the characters + arranged the lighting would give it that prominence in the composition. I based it on ref photos of real electrocution wounds. (And that makes the second time I've put marks on Johan's skin for this event lol).

Occasionally, I'd screencap the image and save it on Discord, so that I could look back at it the next day and immediately notice anything major I needed to fix.

Fun fact: In my vision, the light-cast-from-window thing was mandatory, but I'd never drawn anything like that before. Reference photos were helpful for inspo, but I needed to observe how it works directly. So (after much procrastination) I decided to turn off the lights in my room and stood for a good half an hour watching the way the light hit my wall in the dark, brainstorming how to recreate this on CSP.

(The most painful part of this piece might be looking up hotel room interior refs and trying to design a bg that looks legit but not with the muted color schemes that seem to dominate luxury hotels use nowadays).

The mirror frame was one of the last pieces to be added, and then I exported the image and imported it onto a different CSP canvas. I added a layer on top the image to paint over any remaining mistakes . I also added some special effects (such as air-brushing Johan's breath). Lastly, I signed the piece.

Fun fact: The "pressed against the mirror" thing was another big challenge, for which ref photos weren't gonna be enough help because I had such a specific idea with the pose + lighting. One day, while I was wandering in a new bookstore and about to leave, the employee told me "We also have a secret room, would you like to discover it?" and she DEADASS pulled open a bookshelf to reveal a hidden chamber??? And inside were obvs more bookshelves but most importantly there was a large mirror on the wall EXACTLY like I needed. So I spent a good while in there taking reference photos using myself as a model hehehe. Thinking back on this experience now, I become more firmly convinced that the universe arranged things so that I could bring this Tealshipping image to the world. *^w^b

Overall, this piece took me literal months to complete (most of which was spent agonizing over whether I could pull off all of the aforementioned goals). I'm noticing some pretty big mistakes now that I'm looking back at it lol but it felt pretty rewarding to finish it at last. Do you think I managed to achieve my intentions?

[dataglitch]

Have you ever thought about creating and selling art guide books with examples and the such? Not just for transformers (though I’d be very personally invested in that because they are haaaard) but just tips and tricks in general? You inspire so so many people, myself included, and that you’re self taught kinda just makes it even better in my heart because you got yourself where you are as yourself and are so successful in it. I saw your post recently answering an ask that had examples and that kind of stuff is literally perfect. There are a lot of people like me that rely heavily on visual learning and there are a lot of people like my brother who have aphantasia who cannot mentally visualize objects and that small post already made several things kinda click in my head that didn’t used to. Sorry if this is a really weird post but I was really curious if you’d ever thought about it, I mean if you started a kickstarter on a guide book I would back the absolute hell out of that. We need more people making guide books for niche things, stuff someone a self taught artist can pinpoint like “I wish I knew this while learning.”.

Regardless, no need to respond if it’s a strange ask, I just want to let you know your art and journey through it are so very inspiring, thank you 🫶

Thank you so much, it's always a treat hearing people like my stuff :D As far as that, I don't think I ever thought about it? At least, I didn't realize there would be a demand for guides from me, but I'm not opposed to the idea. I have thought previously of opening a Patreon for tutorials and exclusive pictures, but with my schedule it doesn't seem feasible unfortunately. I won't lie, but sometimes I feel that due to not having the right education or not being an art graduate, my advice may not seem correct? Might be a self-conscious thing, but as long as people are alright with having a different view of things from someone who's self-taught, I don't mind helping out. If there's specific things people are curious about regarding the process, I might create small guides for others to follow. Nothing too technical of course, just straight up screenshots and step-by-step directions :) It's taken me years to learn and I'm always looking for ways to improve, so why not share some of the things I learned along the way with others? :D Since I have gotten various asks regarding this, I've decided to make a masterpost/workflow guide on how I plan and render my pictures. Would that be something people would like? Lastly, please don't feel bad about asking, I really do appreciate you taking the time to write this! It's always fun to talk about how stuff works behind the scenes :)

[himanshusharma]

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS, BLOG POST: UPDATE 4.4 UV AND TEXTURING | (DEVELOPMENT PROJECT 01)

Alright, let's be real. My latest project was starting to resemble a digital landfill more than a work of art. I had crammed EVERYTHING in there, convinced that "more is more" was the golden rule. Turns out, I was spectacularly wrong. I was knee-deep in texturing this gigantic, sprawling scene, having meticulously (and perhaps a bit mindlessly) blocked out every detail imaginable, when it hit me like a ton of bricks: I had completely lost the plot.

My mentor, Neil, a professional who's seen it all, had dropped some hints about this during one of his lectures. He talked about the importance of "intentional design" and how a cluttered scene can actually work against you, muddling the overall impact. At the time, I just nodded along, thinking, "Sure, Neil, great advice.

A few weeks later, I found myself staring at a screen overflowing with… well, stuff. Just a mountain of digital assets. I was so fixated on getting every tiny detail in during the blocking phase that I'd completely neglected the bigger picture. The composition was a train wreck, the focal point was buried somewhere beneath a pile of polygons, and the entire scene felt clunky and overwhelming.

Here's the Brutal Truth: Over-Blocking is a Creative Roadblock.

I had fallen into the classic trap of thinking that a successful scene meant jamming in as much as humanly possible. I mistakenly equated sheer detail with quality, not realizing that true artistry comes from carefully chosen details that work together to form a cohesive whole. My excessive blocking had become a crutch, hindering me from truly understanding the space and how to make the most of it.

Time for a Digital Detox (aka The Downsizing Diet):

After a minor (okay, maybe it was a full-blown) creative meltdown, I decided to finally take Neil's wisdom to heart. It was time for a radical intervention. I steeled myself (and brewed a very strong pot of coffee) and embarked on a ruthless downsizing mission.

This wasn't just about randomly deleting objects. It was a total re-evaluation of the scene's purpose and its narrative. I started asking myself some tough questions:

What's the core story I'm trying to tell here? Which elements are absolutely essential to tell that story? Where do I want to direct the viewer's eye? How can I use negative space to my advantage? By answering these, I began to carefully excise elements that were unnecessary, distracting, or simply didn't belong. It was honestly painful at first, like deleting a part of myself. But with each object removed, the scene began to breathe easier.

The Results: Less Really IS More

The transformation was honestly astonishing. Suddenly, the focal point popped out of the visual noise. The composition felt balanced and deliberate. The negative space, which I'd previously ignored, became a powerful tool for guiding the viewer's gaze.

The downsizing process didn't just make the scene look better; it dramatically improved my workflow, too. With fewer elements to wrangle, I could focus on polishing the remaining details, achieving a level of refinement I never could have managed with that initial cluttered mess.

What I Learned (the Hard Way):

My journey from a digital hoarder to a (somewhat) reformed minimalist has been a humbling but incredibly valuable experience. I've learned that true artistry isn't about the sheer quantity of detail, but the quality and purpose behind each element. And most importantly, I've learned to actually listen to my mentor! Thanks, Neil, for pulling me back from the edge of digital chaos.

So, if you're finding yourself drowning in a sea of digital clutter, take a step back, reassess what you're trying to achieve, and don't be afraid to start cutting things out. You might be surprised at how much clearer things become when you embrace the power of "less." And hey, you might even discover you function a whole lot better as an artist.

[miyamoto-acmwo-capstone]

Tumblr 7th Update (Weeks 11 and 12)

Hey, everyone! We’re getting really close to the end now. Crazy to think that the end of the semester is so close now, but I guess being busy with work has helped with the time passing so quickly. This time around I’m going to do things a bit out of order. First, I want to talk about the “aha” moment that I had this past week. Earlier this week, I met up with my peers and Professor Sharla for class and this time around, I got to see what everyone has been working on this past semester. It was really eye-opening to see the hard work that everyone has been putting into their projects and I was genuinely impressed by a lot of them! For example, any project that involved coding, like the ones that were making video games, I kept thinking to myself about how lost I would be if I tried to tackle something like that. But that’s why that’s their specialty and not mine. So with all that being said, seeing all of their projects encouraged me to keep at my own project and finish out the semester strong. As for hurdles or hiccups, these last two weeks haven’t had anything too bad of note, which is a big blessing.

Anyways though, with these last two weeks, I’ve been able to hit a big milestone. Just a few days ago, I managed to finish the seventh video in my series, thus completing the production phase of my deliverable. Last week I finished the sixth video, so I’ve been able to keep at the schedule that I’ve been blocking out for myself. And as for what’s coming up in the next two weeks is entering post-production. This includes things like tidying everything up like the channel for instance, creating a “behind-the-scenes” video and double-checking my senior project paper. 

I’m pretty much exactly where I should be on my timeline right now. I wanted to block out the last few weeks of the semester for post-production where in-case anything needed major changes, I would have a decent buffer of time to fix whatever needed fixing. And thankfully, I can say that I’ve reached that point. The end is definitely in sight now, but that’s no reason to let up on the gas. I’m not there just yet. 

Attached is a link to my sixth and seventh videos. As the seventh is the last in the series, I’ll share a screenshot of my workflow for that video. Now it’s on to post-production! See you all in the next update!

[sytokun]

I wish more people analyzed the letter more because there are parts people don't talk about that, to me, are so interesting from a behind the scenes perspective. There's a part where Shane mentions that when production started and more people got involved that others started to call the shots in ways different than what Monty wanted so things like the look of the show, artstyle,and process of creating assets changed and its like well what were they supposed to be? Or there's another part when he says that people they didn't want were hired and people they wanted were passed over so its like who were these people they didn't want and did want? The process of trying to move a small team to california to work on RWBY seems interesting too since RT would end up expanding there anyways when they created the funhaus branch in 2015.

Also since Shane mentioned the specific workflow that he and Monty had that RT disapproved of and scrapped, I don't know if you know of this channel but there's an animator named Cake that makes videos analyzing Monty's ways of animating and recently made one where they talk about the workflow since they managed to talk to Shane about it. Here.

https://youtu.be/LI7fL3bIodE

Oh darn, I was meaning to watch that Cake video but forgot. Thanks for reminding me. Really interesting stuff.

And yes, disregarding the ethical discussions and emotional baggage surrounding it, the contents of the letter are just generally interesting to sift through and think about because it offers a rare look into production companies and what rank-and-file staff like animators go through.

Monty having a "dream team" to work on RWBY is a somewhat verifiable thing, as he has a lot of creative friends, many of whom worked with him on RWBY, and many also corroborated the letter. Monty was also known to handpick people he liked working with or he felt fit RWBY's aesthetic. I believe he chose Einlee and Kristina Nguyen this way back then, but my memory on it's fuzzy so don't quote me on it.

As for people he wouldn't want, I'd probably say it's those bureaucrat types who're just there to wrangle RWBY's production, and not in a "we need to have a direction" way and more like "we're not letting you do what you want with your show" kinda way, much like was done to Nomad of Nowhere and its creator Georden Whitman.

I don't doubt that the way Shane and Monty worked would very likely not mesh well with group animator settings, where syncing information and asset folders are key. They have a more renegade solo animator vibe to them, with their own workflows and special shortcuts and workarounds, so growing pains trying to work within a setting where structure is more strictly enforced, is to be expected.

[jomatto]

I don't know if I've officially announced it, but I'm presently in the process of rewriting Mister Cinderella. I've written some things down but now I'm trying to organize everything into Scrivener.

This is something new I'm trying, at least in regards to my stories. I've spent the last couple years dealing with workflows, kanban boards, spreadsheets, and all sorts of annoying BS at work. From this experience, I've learned that I'm a very meticulous sort of fellow, and applying this approach to story writing may generate tangible results.

However, my plan is to only update once everything is complete. I ain't about that update-as-I-go life anymore. I want everything to be ready to go as soon as I make my comeback announcement, and nothing would kill my momentum more than a disappearing act moments after my grand entrance. If I'm gonna be coming back, I'd better be bringing something big to prove it.

Mister Cinderella has become a testbed for learning Scrivener. The more I dig into it, the more I'm digging its features. Being able to move scenes around willy-nilly or bring up reference cards for characters, settings, and themes across multiple windows fits very much into my modus operandi. I find it easier to set up foreshadowing and callbacks, maintain thematic consistency, and just make the whole thing a lot more structurally sound.

I've reached a point where I feel like I'm making steady progress, so I've started looking ahead for what's next on the horizon. Besides MC, there's only one other story that I haven't finished in my FF.net profile, and that's Best Deceptions Redux. The last update was July 2014, which means it's been more than 8 years. That's a helluva long time.

After a brief flirtation with Ranma 1/2 and Evangelion in middle/high school, it was Best Deceptions that pulled me back into the fanfiction writing game and it made poetic sense to close out my run with the story that started it all.

We go back even further and the original has been dead for much longer -- since 2006. That's over 16 years, twice as long as my neglect. Methinks the story is cursed since it failed to cross the finish line twice -- but I suppose getting a second wind is more than most stories get if we talk about the massive graveyard of unfinished fics floating about the internet.

Since I wanted a refresher course, I tried to look up the original story but it's been gone for a long, long time -- and I mean gone. The profile for the original author has been done and dusted, with nary a trace left behind. Imagine my sheer panic that the story I'm trying to remake no longer exists. Well, shit.

But didn't we encounter this exact situation not too long ago? Luckily, an enterprising individual requested that I recover a story that I long since buried, and I was able to exhume its corpse thanks to the foresight of preservationists who backed up FF.net's entire story database.

To my abject horror, I could not find it after searching in the "K" archive. I gave it a couple more tries and eventually resigned myself to thinking that I'd have to depend solely on my faint memories to finish the tale. I went to bed, weighed down by the prospect of trying to complete a story that no longer exists.

Next day arrives and I search for it again. Found it. Turns out, I was looking in the wrong folder. You'd think a story that was never completed would be in the "In Progress" folder, but since the original author officially discontinued it, they marked it as "Complete". Now that's just confusing, not to mention, the archive has multiple folders for Kingdom Hearts (because of the crossover categories).

I backed that shit up immediately. Since the original author deleted everything, I could now claim sole ownership over the plot and firmly declare "I made this".

Obviously, I'm not as unscrupulous as to take credit for something I didn't make, but I do find it funny that I credit a writer that can no longer be found by conventional means. There's no way for readers to unearth this mysterious original "Best Deceptions" that I mentioned unless they go through the effort that I did. I might archive it publically on my profile somewhere if I ever get started on this final story, but for now, I'll hold on to it as reference material for my version.

I always thought that the internet was a place where everything is recorded forever, but the state of data is much more precarious than we think, and that has been demonstrated multiple times over the years with the loss of huge websites that are forever doomed to be remembered by a cache image.

Someone sent me a message last year warning me that FF.net could potentially be closing down and suggested that I repost my stories on AO3 or archive them somewhere. As far as I know, FF.net is still up, but who knows how long that will last? Although I've been lucky enough to recover two long-lost fics thought to be destroyed, it makes sense to make a backup while the opportunity is still there -- just in case.