uther-menethil - Tumblr blog

[uther-menethil]

((

I've been corrupted.  First with Archmage-Proudmoore suggesting an AU where Milanda is Uther's older sister, and then seeing the shipping and realizing that in this AU the Scarlet Crusade is actually a legitimate part of the Church, and Arthas actually goes out to the Monastery on a regular basis to see how the Inquisitors are faring in their anti-cult work...

))

[uther-menethil]

((Alternately/complimentary, this song also strikes me as being terribly fitting despite being about an affair.))

(( 

I saw Heather Dale mentioned on my dash.

May I submit this as an early-courtship song for Jaina/Arthas, or would that be far too incredibly dorky?

))

[uther-menethil]

(( 

I saw Heather Dale mentioned on my dash.

May I submit this as an early-courtship song for Jaina/Arthas, or would that be far too incredibly dorky?

))

[uther-menethil]

((Was being sarcastic with friends, and suddenly remembered a time when I was little, my older brother convinced my twin that "genius" was an insult (by saying it in a really nasty tone), to the extent that my twin went running to our parents crying "I'm not a genius; tell him I'm not!"

...Which seems incredibly like something Uther would do to Terenas.))

[uther-menethil]

((It's kind of funny.  Almost all the blogs I follow have really cool colored icons (even one of the Kael blogs uses a picture with lots of deep purple shadows), and then Sally or Vaness post and it's this startling burst of bright red.))

[uther-menethil]

((

Today on "Brats who are Unflinchingly Complete Momma's Boys" (with a dose of "mun is terrible at timing and planning ahead so this may no longer be topical").

Quiet reading time together.

yes Uther needs a magnifying lens to read I just can't draw it well enough so you can tell what it is

))

[uther-menethil]

((

Varian Wrynn has the bad luck of being friend to both Jaina and Arthas, and therefore gets to hear from both of them whenever they fight.

And they do fight.  Lots.  They're both stubborn (Arthas being the king of pig-headedness about things, Jaina being very strong willed), and have differing views on several key points, in addition to Arthas' lingering chronic fears of commitment (and goodness does half his angry self-righteousness break down into pathetic confessions that he thinks he's an awful husband (and father, after they have kids) if Varian keeps him talking long enough).  It's actually become fairly common for only one of them to be In Residence in the Capital at a time, the other attending to external matters in order to have time to themselves and to cool off.

And Varian just doesn't get it.  His friends both seem to insist throwing themselves into danger, and have made enemies of powerful supernatural forces and why are they spending so much time fighting when something stupid as a stray toss of a rock could rob them from one another.  Tiffin died before they could really move out of the honeymoon phase, and seeing two people he loves seem to resent one another at times over the most ridiculous things makes him want to just scream at them (and maybe a certain Lady Prestor makes a point to mention off-handedly over how little they seem to appreciate what they have, and push all the right buttons to work him into a state of resentment).

There are times when Arthas will work himself into such a worry about how awful of a parent he thinks he is that he'll make himself physically ill.  In that state he'll usually leave the boys to their tutors and various other staff, because he's convinced himself he'd some how ruin them if he were to take care of them.  Varian, who was forced apart from Anduin for an agonizing span of time, finds this detestable as well.  He used to tease Arthas when they were younger that maybe he's just afraid of having kids too early because his parents waited until the last possible moment to have any of their own (Lianne was well into her 40s when they finally had children - much to everyone's shock), but now it's not so much amusement as concern.

Varian's always wanted a family, and has had it robbed from him several times in the past.  Arthas never really wanted one, and struggles to deal with it but can't get over his lingering fears.  Neither king can really understand the other on this point.

))

[uther-menethil]

((

Hopefully cheerful message below the cut:

Old Digital painting I did years ago:

More recent stuff:

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that digital art fucking sucks and the learning curve is so irritating and hard to tell.

But it does exist.  The trick is, if you'll forgive me for being the biggest hypocrite in the world, to keep forcing yourself to work on it even though it sucks and likely everything you make will be hideous.  I'm a baby about it, which is why my improvement is so slow.  

But on upswings, I like using This Figure & Gesture Drawing Site, because it has timed practices that sort of force you to sit there for half an hour or whatever and just get used to how the tablet works and feels.  I use an ipad, so I get to keep some of the familiarity with being able to see what I'm working on right under the "pen", but when I was working on a more standard drawing tablet I know having to look away from what my hand was doing KILLED me.

So doing some mandatory sketch time just to get used to that sensation will really help improve.  If you're using photoshop or SAI or some other popular painting program, there are tons of tutorials that can tell you technical cheats and tricks WAY better than I can, so I'd try googling those too (but they're kind of hard to understand just reading - I took a class in digital art in high school that taught me the basics of layerwork and photoshop tools and I still go crosseyed browsing tutorials).

Beyond that, here's some more hypocritical advice:  try to do something new each project you work on.  Start some junk sketches and play around with layer effects and stuff like your lasso tools.  Digital art is great because you can duplicate layers, and just undo stuff with a simple command, so if you don't like how something looks just ctrl-z and try something new!  The more you experiment the less alien it all seems (and this is from someone who used to work exclusively in watercolors and pencil sketches).

))

AHAHAHAHAH I suck at digital art help please someone

[uther-menethil]

((

Ughhh... Generating my own positive Jaina feels.

Uther is a really terrible student and his tutor just assumes he's not doing well in lessons because he's just not that smart.  Jaina takes time out of her super busy schedule and just scries on some of the lessons to see if she can't figure out what's wrong.  

She ends up pulling Uther aside in the halls one day and handing him a book that's way above the difficulty levels he's been studying at, mentioning offhand how there's whole segments on this thing he's interested in midway through.  He ends up forgetting to do his normal assignments but finishes the harder book in like two days and won't shut up about it.  Turns out damn, does she know all about being bored to tears when people are talking below her level constantly.

She casually drops suggestions for other things tutors can try in order to improve things, and rightly assumes her title as Queen of the Academics.

))

[uther-menethil]

((War Crimes kills my RP focus because now whenever I want to write Uther all I can get is him shouting down men I hate and pep-talking his mom telling her she deserves way more respect than them.

Someone link me to some fics or something where characters I like aren't treated terribly so I can pretend all is well and actually write instead of doing self-indulgent Gary-Stu fixits))

[uther-menethil]

((Was digging through the drawing programs I don't really use that often on my ipad and I found like, my first sketch of Gavin I ever drew.  It's of them after they've been knighted and granted the title "Kingshield" (I guess I drew them with a polearm even though they're prot because I was trying to ape off of the aesthetics of old Saint art even though it's a trashy 1-layer sketch on Paper?)

Their face and design is pretty different now, but it was kind of neat to see this when I was flipping through the files.))

[uther-menethil]

((

That War Crimes excerpt is giving me a headache, but now I can spout off another AU Headcanon and make it seem topical.

Given the ties between the Burning Legion and the Scourge, any usage of fel magic in Lordaeron is considered just as bad as straight-up necromancy or Cult worship.  The smart Warlocks have all fled south; anyone suspected of trying to consort with demons is thrown to the mercy of the Church of the Light, and usually ends up as a guest of the Inquisitors.

This ends up being a really big point of contention between Varian and Arthas (who already butt heads over other major issues, a fact that was capitalized upon by Onyxia to try and isolate the Wrynns from potential support).  Varian turns a blind eye towards the practices of Warlocks so long as they work for the Alliance and keep their heads down (so the same as old lore), even if he's not happy about what they do and doesn't trust them as far as he can throw them.  Lordaeron considers this as Stormwind playing sanctuary for criminals, and is Not Happy about it.

The Kirin Tor side with Lordaeron on the issue, though they request any captured texts and artifacts be handed over to them for further study.  Jaina thinks straight-up executing people caught practicing fel magic is too harsh (anything where Arthas acts upon a "purge first ask questions later" policy sets off alarms with her) and uses her influence with Dalaran to try and get rehabilitation programs for offenders in place (but she doesn't support Varian's live-and-let-live attitude towards the matter either).

))

[uther-menethil]

((Royal swearing headcanon time.

Uther likes skulking around the barracks and visiting his Uncle Tandred, and has therefore picked up an amazing vocabulary of profanity (and, given that he's firmly of the mind that any attention is good attention, uses said vocabulary whenever a chance arises).  It's his sacred duty as an older brother to pass on this knowledge to Terenas, much to everyone else's chagrin (Tandred thinks it's hilarious and makes a point to "slip up" with his language in front of his nephews, just to mess with his sister and brother-in-law).))

even princesses swear like sailors sometimes i see

[uther-menethil]

((

I've been very quiet I know.  Isolation hits me hard at times and I withdraw even more (which yeah is counter-intuitive).  So I'm posting some more generic WoW art here instead of on my main blog to break up the silence.

Trying to adapt Blizz's designs and work out differences between two characters who have similar features due to stylization of their home media. Metzen likes giant eyebrows, hair parted down the center, strong triangular jaws, cleft chins, and nose scars, doesn't he?

So Varian's more angular, with a perpetual bitchface, a Roman nose shape (which is what I took away from running around with him setting up Lion's Landing), very expressive and severe eyebrows, thin lips though his upper lip is rather defined, and scowl lines near his mouth.  

Arthas has a more straight but prominent nose, a rounded/softer edge to his jaw, his cleft is more subtle, his eyebrows are very flat (a carry over from an old communications class that mentioned that type of shape comes across as less emotive and more untrustworthy), dimples, a more prominent lower lip, and his forehead is more sloped with a groove visible in profile. 

and no I still don't know why every time I draw Arthas he has tired puppy eyes.  Even when I draw LK Arthas he has those fucking puppy eyes

))

[uther-menethil]

((It's not the implied contact that startled me so much as the attention; I don't generally do things that garner admiration.))

uther-menethil replied to your post:uther-menethil *hugs*

((! Affection?! What? Uhhh…. *hugs back*))

((You’re awesome and you deserve awesome hugs.))

[uther-menethil]

Night Elf

Highborne with Cropped Ears

Commoner High/Blood Elf

Fashionable/Noble High/Blood Elf 

I know I’m not a major fanartist or RPer so nobody will care, but I thought I’d share some of my weird WoW Elf ears headcanons anyways.

Right around when WoW was first released I read a WC3 fic that mentioned in passing High Elves bracing their ears as children to get them to stand upright properly, and thinking about that, it makes a ton of sense to me.  Look at any dog with pointy upright ears, and you’ll see they’re born with floppy ears, and sometimes owners have to tape their puppies’ ears to “train” the shape.  The “puppy ears theory” also makes sense with the Blood Elf emotes where their ears move somewhat (like flopping down when they cry).

(Example of “training” a puppy’s ear shape)

That got me to thinking about the differences between NElf ears and BElf ears, and how that might have evolved.  

Going from the Trolls->NElves theory, Elf ears naturally sit low and wide.  The Highborne, looking for more ways to set themselves apart from the chaff, at some point declared wide ears to be common and unsightly.  This started a trend of body modification to achieve a better aesthetic of high ears close to the skull.  An array of “training” jewelry was developed, usually consisting of solid but light-weight cuffs that supported the middle of the ears, and a bar or chain that ran behind the head to pull the ears closer together.  More extreme fashion involved actually cropping the ears in addition to the binding, in order to get a very fashionable curve.  When the Highborne were exiled, the practice of ear binding and training was continued, close-set tall ears with a slight curve being the height of beauty standards.

At some point the further evolution of High Elves meant they naturally had smaller ears anyways, but binding and training ear-shapes is still an important part of proper appearances.  Much like real-world Humans often going through years of orthodontic treatment , High Elf and Blood Elf children will go through a period of ear-training (Cropping is rarely done in the current age, considered a violent way to achieve the aesthetic compared to simply training ears at a young age), with wealthy families having specialized jewelry, and poor families often just binding the shapes with stiff cloth, creating somewhat of a visible class divide.  

Rough illustrations are in order:  Standard Night Elf ears, Highborne with cropped and pinned ears, commoner High/Blood Elf, wealthier High/Blood Elf, Troll for comparison, toddler High/Blood Elf with soft ear cartilage, young High/Blood Elf with simple bracing cuffs (no pinning bar or chain)

[uther-menethil]

It was the indistinct babbling that made Jaina stop and retrace her steps.  There were her sons sprawled in the middle of a side hall, engrossed in some odd game; Uther had an old shield he'd procured from somewhere propped up and was watching solemnly as his little brother smacked at its surface.  At eight months, her youngest still hadn't mastered the art of crawling yet, but the baby was making a valiant effort to pull himself closer to shield as his older brother tilted it about.

There were many questions the queen was tempted to ask - where had the rest of Uther's clothes gone to, how did the boys elude their caretakers to end up in this remote hallway, where had the shield come from, what was so engrossing about whatever it was they were doing, just to start with. In the end she stayed silent, choosing to watch the two play peacefully instead.  Uther had been deeply upset to lose his status as an only child, and generally preferred to ignore Terenas' existence when he wasn't making demands that they simply get rid of the baby.  Seeing the brothers play together warmed the archmage's heart - perhaps all the fuss was just the latest plot the little boy had concocted to get attention, and not genuine hatred for his baby brother.

It wasn't long before the older prince noticed her standing there, but when all his mother did was smile fondly, his attention quickly returned to playing.  Jaina kept her vigil for a few moments longer before resuming her trek through the palace, mood considerably brighter.