#I have way more sketches and drawings but it feels weird posting multiple times a day so perhaps tomorrow

[kyliebrightsun]

Haven’t posted art in a while so uhh, sketchbook drawings! Sonic has claimed my souls so it’s only sonic

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic the hedghog fanart #blaze the cat #knuckles the echidna #shadow the hedgehog #sonadow #for the last drawing #they are the enemies to friends to lovers couple ever #metal sonic #rouge the bat #I have way more sketches and drawings but it feels weird posting multiple times a day so perhaps tomorrow

[genericpuff]

The Extended Mishandling of LO's S3 Midseason Finale Premiere

Alright, so I had mentioned leading up to the release of the newest LO episode that my feelings regarding LO returning were pretty "meh". Not hyped, but not completely back of mind either. Just sort of a weird calm before the storm type feeling that could go either way.

I'm glad I got to have that moment of calmness because good god, this episode was an absolute shitshow. And honestly, I'm not surprised, for several reasons:

Rachel has never been good at maintaining a buffer, even back at the start of the series she only ever had 2-3 episodes ready ahead of her schedule which is NOT an ideal buffer for an originals series.

Rachel has never been good at writing, she's very "draw first write later" and has stated as such in interviews that when she gets 'stuck' on what she's writing, she'll just start drawing and fit the pieces in later.

Four months is NOT enough time to both rest, attend massive conventions, and work on improving a project while also getting buffer episodes ready.

Because of the FP episodes remaining locked over the hiatus, technically Rachel only needed to have ONE episode ready upon return for the newest FP release, not multiple like she'd usually need like in the past during the S2 midseason hiatus or the season finale episodes which would unlock those FP releases like normal - so for all we know, she could have drawn this episode literally last week, especially when the promo material was so last minute. Frankly I think it was REALLY stupid for whoever it was who decided to keep these FP episodes locked (whether it was her or WT, it was more likely WT) but you can read all I have to say about that in my review of the midseason finale episodes.

All that's to say, no, there was never any guarantee Rachel was going to somehow "turn around" the ride we're currently on. I know that many of the critics were hoping for that to happen, but with the circumstances of the hiatus mixed with Rachel's bad habits of putting her best efforts into the procrastination projects that aren't her actual comic (ex. the few original pieces and LO sketches she put out during the hiatus) it just wasn't in the cards. This is where the comic is at and this is where it will remain until it's over.

I want to also point something out about this episode that was... really glaring to me.

As with all of these hiatus returns, LO got priority advertising in the first two banner slots and push notifications AND a popup ad within the app. This is unsurprising, Webtoons is still trying to milk this thing for what it's worth.

I know a lot of people are gonna focus on the art, or the fact that WT is continuing to shill LO, but I wanna point out the part that WT implemented specifically - "NEW SEASON".

This is literally just false. At best I'd like to think some intern just messed up and thought this was a new season, but it's literally not, the episode designation still says "S3". Note that the creators only design the banner art, the actual labels on top are put there by Webtoons.

But at worst, this feels like blatant lying to continue to hide the fact that LO is ending. Mind you, Rachel and Webtoons have still not put out official posts stating that this is the final arc. There is NOTHING from either of them to communicate to the audience that the comic is ending next year. It feels like they're trying to avoid the topic altogether out of fear of losing the fanbase they still have, rather than hyping up the comic's end for those who have stuck around to see how it all wraps up. And honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case, considering they're now trying to funnel the fanbase into Penguin/Inklore with new marketing deals and the whole Rachel Smythe Presents thing. They're trying to make this seem like the beginning of something "new" when it's really just a quiet shifting of management (Penguin House).

But all that aside, let's actually get into the episode. It's one episode after 4 months, which is not standard for LO's hiatuses, typically FP episodes release on schedule (meaning free readers start hiatuses 3 weeks after FP readers do), the only time this has been an exception has been with the 2 week breaks because the whole point of those was to build a buffer (which you can't do if you're going ahead and releasing the FP episodes anyways). For extended hiatuses like these, usually free readers still get their FP episodes, but that wasn't the case here. That means Rachel technically only needed one episode ready for the comic's return, and it shows. It really fucking shows.

FROM HERE ON OUT THERE WILL BE FASTPASS SPOILERS REGARDING EPISODE 254. DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED !!!

As per tradition, we get a title that means nothing at all. It just says what we already know.

Our collective husband Zeus is dying, no thanks to the poison cupcake fed to him by Apollo. For those who don't remember, Apollo had tricked Zeus into eating the cupcake by making him believe it was from Hebe. We are fully aware that it was Apollo who poisoned him. Remember that for later in this review.

Right off the bat we're off to a hilarious start, both with a cryptid appearance from Apollo in the background (lmao) who is, for some reason, ALREADY returning to the scene of the crime he just committed because... who knows at this point. Apollo and Psyche know it was Apollo at this point, I might add, but I have no clue why Apollo is actually returning to the scene of the crime when he has no idea Eros and Psyche know.

Moving on from that, can we talk about this hilarious dialogue?

"We have to call a doctor! Let's call Asclepius!"

"No, we can't trust him! Gosh darn it, why are we only bothering to think of ONE doctor in this universe where we've seen more than one doctor?? Guess Zeus is just gonna die! What a horribly contrived situation this is!"

And that's literally how I can best describe most of this episode. Contrived. There is a LOT of manufactured drama in this that makes ZERO sense even on a surface level.

And what do you mean exactly, Eros? "What a terrible system!" Is this supposed to be a joke? Lampshading? We've seen Persephone go to the gynecologist. There are non-god doctors who tend to gods all the time here.

Eros just doesn't seem to be that pressed over this, he sounds like Ned Flanders and that's NOT a good way to open up a scene like this... let alone an episode people have been waiting four months for.

Anyways, after a few pointless reaction panels (again remember I have to cut a lot of what I show here for Tumblr image limitations but I promise you, I'm keeping as much important stuff as I can in this, there's just THAT MUCH filler at this point), Eros and Psyche confront Apollo and he is... good god.

There is... so much to unpack here.

First of all, remember those theories about how Rachel was clearly trying to write Apollo as this "secret twist villain" the whole time but it doesn't work because Apollo is simultaneously written as both a 'conniving villain' and a massive dumbass at the same time?

Well, I finally have a more appropriate term for him. He's your average red pill redditor - someone who thinks he's smarter than everyone else when really all he does is sit on reddit all day using big words incorrectly in arguments he gets himself into with a bunch of equally-air-headed dumbasses.

"You can't possibly understand the nuances of the Olympian political system," Apollo said proudly, a man who had, ironically and obliviously, run for president in a monarchy. The union of kettle and pot is eternal.

He's the Slappable Jerk but instead of it being a painfully hilarious impression, it's just painful and hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

this is so stupid because it's 1.) Eros pointing out how obvious Apollo's plan was, despite Apollo acting smart two seconds ago with a goddess who, mind you, has been a goddess for ten years, and 2.) patricide isn't even intrinsically linked to politics, there's nothing 'political' about a guy trying to kill his dad except in, idk, a monarchy, which again, Apollo has spent ten years trying to rise to power in as a president which is a completely different form of government.

If I wanted to be really granular with this, I'd like to think Apollo is making some kind of point about the critics who call out LO's whack as fuck political system (especially in the trial arc) - as if he's saying "well you're just a stupid reader and this is fantasy where you don't understand exactly what political system we're using, so shut the fuck up you stupid twig" - but I don't think it's meant to be that deep. I think it's just Rachel trying to write a smart character and then failing at it because she, herself, is not a smart writer. And I'm really inclined to believe that more than the theory about this being some kind of meta-narrative about the critics because this entire plotline is contrived and stupid down to its core.

I did not cut anything out here, that's the pacing. Leto literally just appears out of nowhere and uh oh spaghettio's, she has Kassandra! Remember Leto? The character we were led to believe was truly "pulling the strings" until she disappeared from the story completely after she realized that Apollo and Persephone weren't a thing, even going so far as to call out her own son for being a fucking dumbass? Well, she's back and once again she's being involved as some kind of "double agent" in this whole thing, even though we literally haven't seen her since halfway through S2.

"Mm yes, you're so stupid, falling into my trap! Even though you had no reason to remember Kassandra anyways because she's literally a mortal woman you just met and you yourself have committed acts of violence against mortals without a shred of care! I'm so smart! My plan is all coming together!"

We've never seen Apollo do anything except cry and poop his pants, the closest he got to being "powerful" was his attempts to murder Daphne (who he seems to have forgotten about in this "master plan" of his) but ultimately he's literally just a piss ant baby and there's no reason to believe that he could somehow outmatch the God of Love who can literally manipulate people's emotions and states of mind with his arrows. But yeah sure go off, you're so powerful and smart.

The worst part is, I can't even buy this as the narrative trying to be like "see how manipulative and conniving he is?" because it's just silly. We've SEEN this man cry with his victim complex, we've seen him say and do the DUMBEST things that don't lend to any amount of "intelligence" he may have, it comes across less as him being "smart the whole time" and more as him trying to sound smart but ultimately sounding incredibly stupid. And I can't even immerse myself into it and buy that maybe that's the point, because it doesn't feel like the point, it just feels like inconsistent writing, he doesn't feel like a 'threat', he's just monologuing.

Bad art and Apollo literally just repeating what Leto already implied so this is a waste of the audience's time.

This is the funniest panel in the whole episode because I can't tell if Apollo is supposed to be in the background (for some reason, despite him literally being in front of Eros and Psyche two seconds ago) or if he's in the foreground and just REALLY small for some reason. This is so off-putting. And of course, it's just Apollo explaining what we're ALREADY SEEING ONSCREEN.

You see, in addition to this episode being contrived, it also talks down to its audience a LOT by explaining exactly what we're seeing onscreen. It's like Rachel saw the criticisms about her not including enough to depict what's actually going on in her head and so she thought the solution was to spoon feed information over pictures that are already doing the job of explaining what's going on. Rachel really doesn't know how to write and even when she tries to implement changes that reflect criticisms that have been made of her writing, she somehow makes things worse because she completely misses the point of what those criticisms are trying to get across.

Anyways, without even trying to resist (for some reason) Eros and Psyche get sentenced to horny jail.

They're now trapped in a basement that Leto somehow has in her home. How do we know that?

HAHAHA FUNNY LAMPSHADING SO FUNNNYYYYYYY

Leto claims that they shouldn't try to escape because the dungeon is "enchanted", but she doesn't even bother to explain what that means. So they literally don't bother trying. They don't try to call her bluff, they don't try to teleport out of there, they literally just go "well shoot", shrug their shoulders, and accept their fate. Just like with the whole "we can't trust the only doctor we bothered to think of" situation, Eros and Psyche are turning out to be some of the stupidest, lowest-effort characters in this comic who literally can't be bothered to try because that would require too much brain power.

Notice how much time we've spent on this and we haven't gotten back to where the cliffhanger of the last episode left off? Well buckle up because there's still more to cover.

So it turns out Hebe was still inside with her dad, in FULL VIEW of what was going on through glass which is somehow COMPLETELY soundproof, and when Apollo steps inside, she just has no idea what happened. She never bothered to even look outside to see what was going on with Eros and Psyche, she's just been sitting on the floor staring at Zeus' dead face for what was likely several minutes, unless Rachel is seriously trying to convince us that conversation and hostage negotiation from earlier only took 2 seconds. The timeline is such a mess at this point that characters basically freeze in place as soon as they're not the focus of the scene.

Apollo rushes inside, acting shocked over the situation, and when Hebe asks where Eros and Psyche are (again, she could have just looked out the window at any time), he's just like "dur idk they just left lol" which Hebe just... buys, I guess.

That's just Persephone but yellow. She's even missing her beauty mark.

See how Apollo put his hand on Zeus' chest/shoulder by the way?

Apparently, despite Mr. Smarter Than Everyone Else trying to pretend it wasn't him, he's able to discern that Zeus is dying from a toxic and rare poison just from touching him. He doesn't even really seem to use his powers, he just touches him and goes "welp he's dead i guess lol don't bother asking me how I know that".

But oh nooo remember that note from before? Well gasp Apollo's gonna use it to frame Hebe! In front of no one else at all!

Hebe of course says she didn't write it, but Apollo continues to try and frame her anyways, even though, again, there's no one else present here, and so it effectively just becomes the most absurd form of gaslighting I've ever seen.

Again, THERE IS NO ONE ELSE HERE IN THE SCENE. He's just trying to claim she did it to absolutely no one at all, in the hopes of... what exactly? That she'll just take the fall for something she knows she didn't do? That she'll somehow be convinced? It's not like Hebe has the same thing going on as Persephone where she has a 'wrathful dark side' he could pin it on, this is just a criminal who just robbed a building pointing at the first person they see and yelling "YOU DID IT!"

All I'm saying is that Apollo would be really bad at Among Us. He'd be the type of player to kill someone, hit the report button, then claim yellow did it which, even if he DID convince the rest of the team, would still get kicked anyways as soon as yellow was proven through the eject to not be the imp and everyone would go "okay cool so yellow wasn't the imp, that means obviously it's purple self-reporting." It's a trick that doesn't even work anymore because of how old it is. Hebe isn't a child here, she's an 18 year old woman who should be fully capable of raising an eyebrow and wondering why Apollo is this quick to accuse her - almost like he's trying to hide the fact that he did it.

But Hebe can't catch onto this, just like Eros and Psyche, she has to act stupid for the sake of the plot.

At first I thought maybe Rachel was trying to do some "whodunit" scenario, but that doesn't work here because we already know who did it. And while there are stories that exist like that that pull it off (ex. Knives Out) the problem with trying to do this the way Rachel did is that the person being framed has to have this thing called motive. The reason why Knives Out and Glass Onion work so well is because the person who was murdered (or conspired against) is someone who is being targeted by multiple people who could all be the murderer. It's quite literally called out in Glass Onion as a form of smart lampshading. "It's like putting a loaded gun on the table, and turning off the lights."

But it doesn't work here because Hebe does not have motive. If you're going to attempt to frame a murder on someone, it has to be someone who would have reasonable motive to commit that murder, even if they didn't actually commit it.

And who among Zeus' children has motive?

What about the war-mongering bloodthirsty god of war who has been regularly sentenced to time in the Mortal Realm to fight in wars in which he's been regularly injured?

What about the chaos-seeking wrathful goddess who would do it to get revenge on the parental figure who cast her aside, or even just for the fun of saying she did it?

Why try and pin it on Hebe, the doting daughter of Zeus who's only had a collective of maybe 20 panels in the entire comic?

But then I realized... it's not Knives Out, it's the fucking Lion King.

Which is just as contrived - if not more - than the assumption this was gonna be some attempt to frame Hebe. It's not. He's literally just trying to keep her from assuming it was him. He could have just as easily played dumb without calling attention to the note but he intentionally went out of his way to try and be Scar from The Lion King , while completely missing the point of why that scene worked in the original movie.

Scar wasn't trying to 'frame' Simba for Mufasa's murder. He was trying to hide the murder, while also attempting to get the only heir to the throne out of the picture, so he passed the guilt of the death onto Simba - a child who, unlike Hebe, wouldn't have the ability to rationalize or realize his uncle his a scumbag - who then ran away from home because he was too terrified to face his family for what happened, assuming that it was all his fault when it wasn't.

That's not how this is panning out here. Hebe is the now 18 year old daughter of Zeus, and not one of his only children. She doesn't even fit into the whole "sons overthrowing their fathers" prophecy like Aries would. Apollo is literally just being a big idiot here by saying "well I'm gonna give you a headstart to run away, because if you stay, I might hurt you" (which btw, should be MORE of a smoking gun that Apollo did it??)

And again, it's all so contrived so that the plot can move forward. "Well I'm going to frame you for this murder, but y'know, you should just leave, I'm not gonna try and press it further lmao"

Again, Apollo is a fucking idiot here, because he just attempted to frame someone who has NO MOTIVE to harm Zeus, to absolutely NO ONE at all who would side with him, only to let her go which would leave her to question why Apollo would try to accuse and harm her in the first place before considering other options. And through ALL this he claims he's the smart one, which I can't even be bothered to "love to hate" because it's written so poorly.

And really it all comes down to how everyone else behaves in relation to Apollo that makes it so stupid and unbelievable. Apollo, you're not smart just because all the characters around you are intentionally being written to be as stupid and non-confrontation as possible. If you can only write a smart villain by making everyone else stupid, you haven't written a smart villain, you've written a dumbass whose victory only happens due to contrived plot convenience. It's not even done well like in Glass Onion, it's just bad writing, full stop.

And who does he call to report this emergency? The satyr police? His son the doctor?

No.

The media. Literally just "hello, the media?? I need your best journalist here stat!"

I need you to understand, even if he were calling a tabloid magazine like The Weekly Nark, you don't just... call a journalist to report a murder. These are not the actions of someone who's trying to absolve himself of guilt, these are the actions of a complete dumbass trying to get news coverage of his trophy kill who would be better off just playing dumb instead of trying to play smart. Even Walter White wasn't this fucking stupid despite all the times he fell on his own sword, Apollo is literally just instigating suspicion towards himself for no reason at all. He's self-reporting so hard and worst of all, you can't even take any of this seriously because of how corny it is. There's no dramatic tension, no stakes, it's just a bunch of characters performing in a really bad stage play and reducing every conflict to "well I guess Zeus is just dead now because no one's bothering to make an effort to stop Apollo or ask questions lmao"

It's truly the epitome of "this plot wouldn't exist if characters would just talk to each other."

But finally, FINALLY we mention the thing this episode is named after, the transition point to Persephone.

Just like with the midseason finale episode, there's a lot to cover here, so I'm gonna get more into it in a part two post.

That said, you can see already this is the messiest, most contrived bullshit to ever wind up in LO. It's trying so hard to be smart and it just comes across as a bunch of toddlers in the world's worst stage play rendition of Clue. None of what was done here was in any way dramatic or tense, it's just a bunch of characters infodumping shit we already know, trying to set up new plot threads that don't make any sense, and allowing one another to get away with what they're doing because they don't bother to even try.

It's completely manufactured, contrived nonsense. It's not "smart", it's not "so dumb it's brilliant", it's just dumb.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus #this is the comic that bought two eisners #uh i mean *won* two eisners #... no wait i had it right the first time lmao

[chibishortdeath]

General Simon brainrot sketch page :3, as per usual, explanations under a cut. Apologies if my posts tend to be kinda huge and difficult to scroll past, I try to do the cuts to make sure they do the least inconvenience to anyone! (>-< ;)

Just the whole page in full ft. My thumb lol

Expression practice! Simon is feeling the weight of his situation rn alas :(. I’ve always imagined him being panicked the whole game; the overarching entire game timer really gives a pretty good feeling of dread imo. The two doodles at the bottom were attempts at multiple ideas I’ve seen floating around about the curse, but they’re kinda bad in execution looking at them no tbh. But the first one is based on the idea that the curse gives some vampire traits like sharp teeth and would probably lead to proper vampirism if he were to die from it. The second was general attempt at like skull practice and comparing facial features to skull structure, but oh my god the page kept smudging and I tried making it look ok with some random blood on there but it just made it look even sillier 💀.

These next two are based on two random like liminal space images I ran into on Pinterest and I drew them mostly because I suck at backgrounds and idk Simon’s Quest itself is like Castlevania: Liminal Space Edition a lot of the time, so it fits X,,,,D. The first one I really liked the composition of the path on the far side contrasted to the trees. Imagine the water is the purple cursed swamp :3. Hopefully Simon has laurels just standin around in there.

This second liminal space for Simon to be in was this neat nighttime photo of a graveyard! Trees are HARD TO DRAW, especially just in pencil and a solid black background. There’s blood on the ground and stuff cause he was just fighting some monsters, probably those two headed lizard guys. It’s the awkward stillness after clearing out an area of enemies.

The pose for this one is based on the LOL~lots of laugh Miku figure lmao 💀💀💀

Simon is very fun to put in exaggerated poses! Especially cause you have to exaggerate them more to get the same ratio of pose to negative space because muscles and armor. I had no idea how to make metal belt armor thingies sit in a like legs up floating sort of pose like this so they kinda bend a little weird but eh he looks cute otherwise. The other doodles present are one that says “brainrot” which is kinda making fun of my own dedication to an NES character 💀 and also cause haha rot like the curse. Also, teeny tiny Simon with a heart!!! :3

Yippie! Simon posing again! I think the first pose was inspired by this like random old anime style angel figure??? Idk I think she was just an original character figure and the pose was pretty different, I just used the reference mostly for the arm position. Anyway, he’s vibin, just sitting curled up and momentarily comfy. Alas, the horrors persist in the second doodle that was an attempt at showing how the curse kinda deteriorates him but he just kinda ended up having a scarily snatched waist and it looks more stylized than like sick. Also the armor kinda bends around him in a way that makes it look like it shrunk with him which is so dumb lmaooooo (XwX). I’ll have to revisit the concept eventually idk, just look at his face for this one XD. Hahaha tiny doodle based on Larval Rin on the left there, nothing to see here—

The main doodle is just Simon looking into the distance bewildered and holding the whip, standard stuff. There’s also a side profile doodle and an attempt at drawing crying again cause I was getting kinda rusty at both of those things.

Simon Belmont but if he was 2000s anime lol. A fun little style experiment, I might keep this as like another secondary art style. There’s also some doodles of a hanged man skeleton, the eyes of Vlad, a skeleton hand, and a couple little chibi Simon’s of various expressions.

More 2000s anime Simon, but in a more silly way like the art style change for joke sections. One is him just goofily holding up Dracula’s head, but it’s contrasted immediately with a more gritty usual art style doodle of him with harsh shading lol. Get you a man who can do both I guess 💀

I gotta practice more on backgrounds and composition and stuff, probably also get some curse effects consistent augh. Lately I’ve been on and off working on random things or just staring into space tired, getting back to using social media is hard and an exhausting uphill battle unfortunately (_ _ ;). Sometimes I feel like I should probably split these up into multiple posts to make things more visible and to put more focus on specific drawings, but idk I don’t really want to, it just feels weird to me breaking up a doodle page like that, if that makes sense??? Eh idk.

#castlevania #castlevania games #akumajou dracula #castlevania ii: simon's quest #castlevania simon’s quest #simon’s quest #simon belmont #art post #my art #fanart #sometimes I forget that the turtleneck addition to his undershirt was like something I added somewhere along the line 💀 #seeing the actual box art and staring at his visible neck like where your clothes at and then I remember oh wait #I did that ​I was the one that who made him cover up 😔 #ok also the hair lmaoooooooo hahahashshs prince of eternia lookin ass #Simon really out here with that fuckass bob Konami what barber did you send him to #I forget that like there’s not the sections and piecing I usually draw and that he really just has his bangs straight cut in that #I guess the way I draw his hair is like a middle ground between his manual doodles and the cover art? #yeah that makes sense I’m using that explanation of it now XD #anyway love him I’ve got another page of him I’ll try to post soon hopefully #past that is some really quick OC concept sketches and like idk dissociating #aaa I gotta talk to people but I keep losing all track of time and then can’t because of guilt augh it’s a miracle I’m posting this rn tbh #daydreaming is a horrible coping mechanism don’t do it guys I’ve been stuck with it since fourth grade 💀💀💀💀💀💀 #it’s addictive it starts out like ‘time to imagine a character to this song :3’ then it’s been two months #vent in the tags #but mannnnnnn 😔😔😔 #anyway here’s a whole sketchbook page of my comfort character who hasn’t seen a day of comfort in his life uh— #idk if posting at like 10 PM at night is a good idea but eh whatever

[cu-taibhseil]

i think a lot of people who are working on their grimoire / book of shadows or what have you forget is that it's supposed to be unique. your book of shadows isn't supposed to be filled with generalized information that just any witch can open up and use. you're not marketing your practice to the masses to consume. it's supposed to be unique, and weird, and messy, and filled with information so unique to your own practice that it's borderline gibberish to someone else.

here are some ideas on how to make your grimoire / book of shadows less accessible to other people and more accessible to yourself.

you can have as many books of shadows as your heart desires. you can have one for divination, one for spells, one for mushroom hunting, one you only use in the summer or the winter, etc. you don't have to shove all of your information into one notebook. separating the information will give you more room to go more in-depth for certain subjects. and it will make it harder for people to know exactly what you've got going on, if that's something you're into.

forget about aesthetics. forget about looking cool or legitimate or neat or organized. forget about how someone else would perceive your BoS/grimoire if they found it. if you're a new witch, and especially if you came from tiktok, you need to unlearn that witchcraft requires aesthetics and certain tools in order to be "legitimate." you can use a spiral bound notebook, you can use scraps of paper put in a manila folder, you can use a tumblr blog, you can print out pages from images on Google and put them in a 3 ring binder and call it day, you can use multiple bulletin boards hung up in your kitchen - ALL OF THOSE ARE LEGITIMATE MEDIUMS FOR A BOS! it's not about what looks the best, it's about what's the most functional for you - the term "book" is just a jumping off point.

come up with a written code that only you have the key to. get one from online, take one from history, or make up your own. write your grimoire or just the important pages, or even just the even or odd pages in code. make it so people cannot physically read your BoS. sigils and protections are great, but keeping people physically out is even better. mine is written partially in Scottish Gaelic and partially in a written code that i invented when i was 11. can anyone else read it? no. because that's the point.

go to the craft store and buy a journal lock. put a lock on it. wear the key around your neck. it'll make you feel so powerful, trust me.

include sketches and drawings of plants, animals, your altar, your house, you, your pets, stones, nature, etc. pretend like you're being paid to illustrate a children's book and go nuts. adding little drawings and sketches of the things you use in your practice, or things you see all of the time, or places you go is a great way to set the mood of your grimoire.

along the same lines, use crayons and colored pencils and markers not just black ink. use glitter. use ribbons. use bias tape. go to the craft store and get stickers. put those in there. whatever you think is cute or you like the best.

tape in more pages! if your notebook is only 100 pages long and you know you're going to need more pages, tape some more in! the limit is only how far the rubber band holding your grimoire closed will stretch before snapping (and even then you can just tie it with ribbon or twine or something)

you can also do taped in fold outs for maps, drawings, recipes, etc

why not add polaroid pictures or pictures you printed off google or pictures you got printed at walmart?

you can add stickers and sequins and glitter to the outside too. it doesnt need to look ancient and serious. we dont live in ancient and serious times. get funky with it.

if you've been struggling with your BoS or grimoire i hope this post helps you!

#personal #my craft #witchcraft #witchblr #book of shadows #grimoire #traditional witchcraft #nontraditional witchcraft

[magpie-trinkets]

I hate what AI art has done to my enjoyment of art. I also hate AI art for multiple other reasons, but that is one of them.

Now instead of enjoying a piece for composition or colour or plain just "this looks pretty" I am instantly suspicious. Sus, one might say. I go through the piece with a fine toothed comb. Is there an inconsistent detail? A mistake a human wouldn't make so far in the process? A weird hand?

Most of AI art trying to pass as art (that I've seen) is heavily rendered, meaning a real artist should've spent hours or days on that thing, chipping away, seeing the piece, which means more opportunities to correct mistakes made in sketch or any other part of the process; it also implies that the artist has some experience and skill, and knowledge of their medium. Art tools, references, etc. Whether you like or dislike their style, their designs or concepts is another matter entirely. This is pure art analysis.

Let's expand:

- Inconsistent details: This is not "this comic artist forgot to copy a detail from panel to panel". This is forgetting bilateral symmetry. This is having fish from the same species have different fin placement. This is weird windows in a normal building, this is breaking a pattern up for no discernible reason. This is a line not connecting with another. This is a detail that shouldn't be there, be there. The AI is good at replicating how something looks, but is bad at paying attention to concepts in the foundation, and it shows with these little details. Concepts that are easily understood by humans by just looking at references and doing sketches.

- A mistake/uncanny wrongness: when you look at a piece for so long, at the same time your back suffers from the unhealthy posture you torture it with, you start seeing mistakes, or things you want to change, or improve, or remove. Like "that pose could be better" or "I forgot this in the background", or "this colour doesn't look good", or "this pattern is too concentrated, I'd better space this element out". An AI doesn't have observational skills or these thought processes. It's also hilariously bad at replicating text. If something feels uncanny, I have to think "did a human make this decision?" or "is the anatomy even correct? the perspective? the colours? the fucking text? it's the fucking text isn't it."

I would offer more specific examples of these, but I try to avoid AI art the second I feel the uncanny wrongness, I have the tag filtered. Once a detail is wrong in a wrong way (I'm not talking an artist accidentally drawing two right hands, I'm talking fingers coming out of fingers) I start to see other mistakes or uncanny decisions. It boils down to the little details.

AI is "trained" (stealing, copying) on multiple other pieces of art. But it copies without understanding. When an artist copies they're trying to understand, they are studying what they copy, and usually they are appreciating what they study. That's why they're called "studies", and they're often properly credited. When they borrow another's style (like Rembrandt) people often say "drawn in a Rembrandt style". AI doesn't do studies, doesn't understand, doesn't credit the thousands of artworks they've stolen from. Because it's thousands, millions. If you tell an AI to generate a painting in a Rembrandt style, you bet your ass the AI is using Rembrandt AND thousand other pieces from different people. But the person posting the AI art says "piece from X AI software in a Rembrandt style!", and that's even if they disclose that it's AI. They don't know which pieces and which artists have been stolen from for that piece. Hey, maybe the AI didn't even copy real Rembrandt pieces. Maybe it's not even Rembrandt style.

I am no longer able to enjoy heavily-rendered, semi-realistic pieces. And the moment AI art encroaches on other styles, we're fucked. Suspicion is such a killjoy, a party shitter and pooper. I hate feeling suspicion every time I see a piece, and I hate feeling right even more.

There's no soul behind AI art. There's no effort or skill. There's no "hours and hours of practicing hand poses". There's no observation. There's no appreciation. There's no intention. There's no love. There's only greed.

#i am not a professional artist but i have eyes #sorry just thinking about it makes me angry. miffed‚ even. #fuck ai art #rant

[o0o0thorn0o0o]

Mineko Old Art Dump, Cont.

Part 2 of 2 :

Now, time for info!

So, for starters: her name. As mentioned multiple times by now, her name is Asano Mineko, as in 峯子. Whereas Karma gets his kanji from their mother (my OC Kuniko) and Gakushuu gets his partially from their father, Mineko gets the remaining two from both. I was trying to see if there was a similar “updated” thing with Gakuhou’s second kanji (like how 学 is derived from 學), but that doesn’t seem to be the case from what I could find. So even though I don’t need to explain why they did that for Gakushuu and Mineko, I came up with one anyway: it’s a trade-off. Gakushuu keeps the reading over the exact kanji, and Mineko keeps the exact kanji over the reading (Mineko was always the plan, though; not fond of “Houko”, especially for her).

I also mentioned this before, but since I’m dumping quite a bit of info about her here, I’ll mention it once more: Mineko’s the middle child, with her birthday being January 1st, just like her younger brother. In these AUs, Karma could be born on the same day, or he could still be born on Christmas—both ways are possible, though I have a slighter preference for the former for some reason.

Before I get into her personality a little, lemme explain some of the drawings. Only some things. The rest will definitely be mentioned in a character sheet—or before: if I happen to draw it again before it gets done, I’ll probably talk about it at least a bit. Let’s go in order now, shall we?

So, um, height? Mineko’s tall, but idk, I feel like I made her too tall in that Until Dawn AU sketch (she’s not in the AU officially, but I do think about her in it from time to time. And jeez, I need to post about that AU some more…). Either that, or I made Rio too short. Like, idk, year 3 Mineko is 5’6” (167 cm), and she’ll be 5’8” (172 cm) at her tallest.

Second: er, you know that sketch that looks like she’s holding a large ice cream cone in a weird way? Uh, yeah, that’s supposed to be a telescope ^^;;; I just never got around to adding the tripod… or, like, referencing an actual telescope instead of from memory, oops. I might actually turn that into a proper post, but no plans as of the moment. But yeah, anyway: Mineko loves astronomy, and one of her favorite hobbies is star-gazing.

Another one of her favorites that I feel like mentioning now, too, is she loves listening to and composing music—mainly instrumentals/orchestral music. She’s the kinda girl you’d invite to an opera, haha (though, not romantically; she’s aroace. The main reason why this is is because I did not want to end up making an OC to pair with her (this has happened multiple times before with others, so this is a way of me putting my foot down with her, haha). That, and it kinda references the fact that at some point in time I headcanoned Karma and Gakushuu as aroace. Though, I still do personally see them being somewhere on the spectrum. But yeah, she aroace).

Then that one sketch where the art style’s very different from the rest—I’m actually not too fond of it anymore, especially the face, but I thought to include because I like the rest of the sketch and especially because—you know that art style I dub my doodle style? The one where the nose connects to the upper lip, and if the mouth’s open, I add a bottom lip? The one I introduced Mineko in? Yeah, fun fact: this sketch was the start of that art style. It’s changed a lot since, but perhaps I wouldn’t have drawn in it were it not for Mineko, haha.

Last thing before I get to her personality and stuff: I’ll mention something about the traditional sketches. Idk if you can tell, but Mineko is a huge junk-foodie—a sucker for fast food. She still keeps track of healthy food, for the most part—but yeah, she’d never turn down fast food, haha. Also, regarding the water: she’s more likely to casually see food in a “romantic light” than she ever is people, haha.

Speaking of, I headcanon both Karma and Gakushuu as good cooks—they can whip up something decent, at least, haha. Mineko on the other hand has no such interest. She’s got her brothers, after all. She doesn’t see a reason to… until she grows up, and her brothers are living their lives, and she realizes she’s got no one to cook for her anymore… Welp, fast food and restaurants have never left her down before, haha.

Ok, now I’ll finally discuss her personality a bit… well, traits? I wanna talk about her intelligence first. She’s a very smart girl, being in 3-A, but she’s not as smart as her brothers and has to try harder to somewhat be on the same level grade-wise—definitely not touching the virtuosos, but 3-A all the same. She also participates in extracurriculars but not nearly as many as Gakushuu—she can only handle so much.

But while she knows she may not have as high an IQ as her brothers, she very much believes she has a higher EQ than them. And to her credit, she does, but probably not by nearly as much as she thinks. See, she’s emotionally repressed, too—don’t let that smile fool you, haha.

For one, she doesn’t like conflict and does her best to smooth things over when/if she can, play the middle man (she likes to think of herself as a bridge, connecting two conflicting sides (especially her brothers; she also likes to say that’s the reason why she’s shorter than them, as (certain types of) bridges tend to dip below the two points they’re connecting, haha. Just a silly thought she likes to muse)). She likes fixing conflicts but would never intentionally start any. Cautious of stepping on toes.

That’s always why she tries her best to plaster on a smile regardless of how she feels—everything’s fine, don’t you know? She’s completely happy with her circumstances; don’t ever worry otherwise! She should be more worried about you than you about her! But yeah, she’ll either only let it slip should a situation get too stressful that she can’t keep it up or if she believes she’s all by herself. All that said, she’s usually fine. Usually. It’s just… when she isn’t…

Also, this girlie’s got major trust issues and is a misanthrope (Gakuhou’s her dad; enough said). She does believe that, of course, not all of humanity is bad. It’s just… she doesn’t trust individuals, especially the more friendly seeming ones. She’s been raised in a family of masks, adorning one herself, so she has no clue whether someone is being genuinely kind or not. It’s just easier for her not to trust them rather than be let down. Everyone’s got hidden agendas, it seems.

And while she’s friendly and polite to everyone regardless of her suspicions—even when there’s blatant evidence she’s right. Because she wants to be kind and helpful regardless. And again, she kinda believes most are like that anyway. Proof is just more of a confirmation of something she believes already—and while most would find her company agreeable, she currently doesn’t have any friends outside her brothers. And nor does she care to. She doesn’t see what she’s missing. Why would you hang out with someone who’s potentially fake? While helpful, she tries to make herself scarce whenever she can.

But yeah, the only way she’ll ever make friends is through a whole lot of interaction; she needs to be able to build up that trust and feel safe. Being close to her brothers is a good start, but she’ll still be wary for a good while. Not something easy, essentially, and could take years. Hence, no friends as of the moment.

Er, yeah, I guess that’ll be all I’ll share for the moment. Ended up being a lot longer than I thought, but I don’t feel like cutting anything either. So yeah; here is she! I adore her, so I hope you like her, too, or find her interesting at least ^^

I feel like you know about her more than the other OCs I’ve already revealed when they’ve been out for a couple years now. Oops ^^;;

#assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #asano mineko #assassination classroom oc #ansatsu kyoushitsu oc #oc #original character #oc art #traditional art #traditional sketch #traditional doodle

[oobi-oobi]

Hihi!

Question: How did you develop your art style, and do you have multiple?(like a more realistic and a more chibi?) Also! Who inspires you to make such pretty masterpieces?

𓅭 𓅰 𓅭 𓅰

Thank you so much!!! You’re so kind!

Sorry, in advance for the extremely long response :') My hand slipped/j

These are the 3 big tips for developing an art style I wish knew when I was younger:

Find the things that inspire you, and break down what you specifically like about them.

Experiment! Try new things! Practice! Your art style will develop on its own as long as you keep creating. 

Have fun! Draw what you enjoy and what makes you happy. Your style is yours; you should enjoy it.

When I was younger, I caught myself thinking things like, "I would like to draw the eyes like this, but I can't because it's not my art style." Then I realized that I was getting in my own way. Once I overcame that mental blockade, I started having fun drawing again. When I allowed myself to experiment, it also caused me to improve faster because I could figure out the things I liked and the things I didn't like. Everyone's art journey and process are different, but this helped me personally.

Yes, I do have multiple different art styles. I have my regular art style, a cartoony art style (I am not currently happy with it. I have a lot to work on), a silly doodle art style, and a realism style (or as close as I can get to it). I also draw eyes differently depending on the feeling I want. For example, I draw tear ducts on characters that I want to have a sort of scary horror vibe, and I don't on other characters (I don't really know why or how it started). I also experiment a lot, which causes my art to always look slightly different. 

I also like to prioritize drawing the things that I enjoy the most. I really like drawing faces and expressions so I've practiced that the most (along with neglecting things I don't enjoy like coloring, I'm working on it I swear, I digress). 

There are also a ton of little trademarks that show up over and over again. Like giving characters sideburns or hair strands that frame their faces, never adding highlights in eyes, adding swirls in hair, and there is this weird thing where I associate the number of eyelashes I give characters to their personalities (I couldn't explain it if I tried 😅). I think it's important to stumble upon little things you enjoy drawing and to keep doing it. 

I never made a list of things that inspire my art even though I really should. Below, I'll list off some artists who inspire me who you can find here on Tumblr.

☆Cryptidw00rm 

(also highly recommend their YouTube animatics they're absolutely breathtaking)

☆Seiishindraws

☆Sinlizards. 

☆Nanamis-username 

☆Viria

(their drawing tutorials have left a lasting impact on me from when I was younger. I really suggest looking them up; they're really in-depth. I couldn’t find the original posts, but it's the first results when you Google "viria art tutorial".)

I'm always instantly enamored whenever I see these artists' works. They are such a huge inspiration. Please go check them out!

There are also a ton of other artists and things that inspire me too, but I'll spare y'all for now. >:)

As a bonus, here is a little example of how my art has developed. I just found my old art from each of the listed times. This is my OC Amaryllis over the years.

Below are some collages of sketches that I hope will showcase my style (these took forever to compile)

And finally, have a Megamind that I am proud of but never posted *thumbs up*

#oobi talks #oobi answers #oobi-oobi art #my art #let's hope the image quality doesn't tank :')

[narbevoguel]

Hello guys. It's been a while since I made a post like this, but today I wanted to talk about my art. I haven't posted something proper in forever, and to say I haven't spent this entire time at least doodling a thing or two would be a lie, but there's a reason why I haven't been posting much and just keeping my art semi private, or multiple, let me explain (I'll have a TLDR at the end if you don't wanna bother with this, but written awfully):

First, I believe you guys deserve more than some stupid sketches. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy sketching, aesthetic aside, drawing multiple sketches a day is how I pushed myself to experiment new things and just get better overall, plus I draw them fast, so I could pull a bunch of sketches in the time it takes me to color just one, so I could spill one silly idea after the other. I don't know why or exactly when I started to feel like this is just not worth it for you guys, that you deserve more from me than what I put out, that maybe I disappoint you immensely. This isn't even about reach, I don't care about that, this is about me showing something worth to see.

Second, is how I chose to spend my time. Last year was a very busy year for me overall, my job became increasingly demanding at times, lotsa personal issues that stressed me out immensely, which resulted in me using my remaining free time doing other activities, including spending time with people I shouldn't have been so permissive with (except my gang, that's why I made it a New Year's Resolution to annoy you guys more, you know who you are), it became a thing where I was even afraid to say no to them in favor of my art or other me-activities in fear of them taking it the wrong way, which, in a weird way, ended up happening anyway and resulted in long term passive aggressive conflict, and well, all of this negativity and then some, especially combined, made me reluctant to pick my pen up most of the time, which leads me to my next point.

Third, not drawing as often made me lose my momentum considerably. I could draw stuff comfortably without much artblock, if at all, or something I thought looked ugly. It just came out naturally, sometimes without even using references, it was crazy, but I feel I lost that momentum; don't get me wrong, I don't think my art looks worse than before, far from it, I did a comparison a couple of days ago and I noticed that despite all these issues, I have indeed improved a lot, thing is, I still feel it doesn't look good, I can't seem to know where I want to go with it, or what I want it to look like, I have no idea how to describe this feeling of "I hate immensely what I've been doing", maybe I'm beating myself up too hard and this is a result of not sharing anything with you guys, but I want to be comfortable with the characters I always draw before I bring them out again (although for some reason Purah's perfection always makes my doodling easier, she has become my ultimate comfort character it seems, hah).

All that said, I want to change things this time. I'm not sure if I'll post more like I did before, or if I'll post less than I used to, but I want to post things again. Maybe won't start soon, but will definitely do it. I've even been stocking up on traditional materials to pick the pen back up in other ways as well (haven't done this since my college days, so I'm a bit excited), I don't want to make promises I can't keep (you guys know I'm terrible with keeping up with stuff lol), but I will try my hardest to post more finished pictures and less sketches. It might result in me posting less art and/or jokes as before, but we'll see where that leads me. I'm still not sure if I'll continue to keep the sketches to myself or not, but one step at a time, step one is to just stop beating myself up, turns out my negativity knows how to throw hands. If you read ALL to this point, my most sincere thanks, I know it isn't easy to put up with my crap, and if you didn't it's fine, I still love you, in fact, I'll sum it up for you below.

TLDR: I'm a stupid piece of crap that didn't know how to manage my free time which resulted in me developing a very serious case of imposter syndrome and I'm throwing hands back in hopes, no, in expectancy of walking out of it a victor, for my sake, and for you guys as well.

Anyway, thanks for reading, short or long version, and remember, a Purah a day, keeps uh, the heart happy and brain mushy, or something like that.

#long rant #random ramble #I don't know why I wanted to say all of this #I just did #I couldn't contain it #It's like word vomit #It just came out like bluaghgahgaghahg #I'm sorry guys #I love Purah

[kazuichikazuichi]

hello friend :)) how about kaede for the ask game if you’d like to do her!!!

hello!! :))) kaede my beloved, of course i would love to talk about her!!! lots of things to say lots of things to say! i think she might be my favourite v3 girl

least favourite thing about them: literally such a dumb thing but: her bangs. idk why but i ALWAYS draw them the wrong way around, then have to correct my sketch by checking reference pictures lol?? which is so weird bc i love kaede but it just won't stay in my brain. kaede please swap your hair direction for me and me only, thank you

favourite thing about them: i love how positive and encouraging she is! i love how she took up the leader position and tried to keep everyone positive and find a way out in ch1 :) and in terms of gameplay, i just absolutely love ch1's angle with the protagonist being the killer (i know she isn't really, but that's how the chapter functions lol) it was such a unique twist. if i didn't spoil the game for myself (on purpose, like, i just straight up went and read the entire plot on wikipedia right after character interactions and stuff for every game😭😭) i definitely wouldn't have seen it coming. but then going back through it and seeing all the small hints aa i love it

favourite line: i can't remember the exact words but doesn't she say at some point that she wants everyone to be friends when they escape? :) not a voiced line i don't think but she's such a sweetheart

brotp: i am such a sucker for kaito and kaede being friends, my silly lil guys, so silly such bffs. i just love them both and they are both so encouraging and sweet and lovely!! they would high five each other lots

otp: my two favourites are gonna have to beeee tenkaede and kaemaki :) tenkaede for obvious reasons, my silly little lesbians i ADORE them, so perfectly matched for each other!! i love how she calls tenko cute multiple times lol :) it sucks that they're somewhat a rarepair, i wish there was more art and fics of them out there :( i will have to just make them myself lol. then for kaemaki, i knowww it's so silly because saimatsu and kaimaki are so common and im literally just flipping them but....idk, i just much prefer it this way around! :) i like imagining that kaede is the only one who can break maki's shell and get to the vulnerable side of her. and i love their interactions in utdp especially the one including chihiro

notp: as with the kaito ask thing, it isn't a ship i hate at all, just one i dislike more than the average danganronpa fan i think, so no hate if you like it whatsoever!!... saimatsu :') i headcanon kaede as a lesbian so not a massive fan of shipping her with boys anyway personally (okay I've just realised other than rantaro, in literally every character ask post I've answered i headcanon them as gay lol😭 i swear it isn't everyone! justttt quite a lot) and specifically about saimatsu, it's sweet but it just feels so forced, like they didn't wanna give anyone a chance to ship either of them before she died yknow? i love them as friends though :)) <3

random headcanon: she has a little heart shaped pillow on her bed that she cuddles while she sleeps

unpopular opinion: i'm not sure if i really have any for her, hmmm sorry!

a song i associate with them: it has to be clair de lune, right?! :)

favourite picture of them: she is such a sweetheart! comfortin silly little shu!! i love pretty much any picture of her though

thank you for asking about kaede!!!! :D this was lots of fun!! and for anyone else still curious im happy to answer about more characters :)

#kaede akamatsu #danganronpa #ask game #ask meme

[riceballoon]

Hi! Hope you're doing well. I really like the way your art looks, and wanted to ask if you have any advice on how to stop the endless ctrl+Zing that happens when you're doing lineart? (Was gonna post a gif showing it but it won't let me send links in asks) -- Have a good one o/

Hi! first of all, thank you for liking my art!💞 to be honest i undo and erase my lines Very Often… but i tried my best to give an answer! my reply is going to be pretty long so i'll put it under a page break

it's pretty old, but here's a process video of me struggling for comparison lol (i assume the lineart you were talking about was my persona fanart!)

My process sort of feels like sculpting out the lines I want from my sketch. I just work on that same layer and refine the lines by erasing away parts I don’t like or redrawing it (hence all the undoing). Lineart on its own layer sometimes ends up looking a little weird for me, since I may lose a lot of the loose energy from the sketch.

In my experience, when I undo lines often it’s a sign that I’m not really confident in my line quality which is the real cause of the issue. The lines that I’m most satisfied with are those that are bold (one continuous line without fraying), have varied line weight, and create interesting shapes with sharp angles that show the object’s 3D form. To do this I make lines heavier when they’re in shadow and thinner where light is hitting the form or when two forms are touching. I sometimes go over the same line multiple times to give it weight (since my favourite brushes usually don’t change size with pressure).

I’d say making sure your lines are confident + stable, and varying your line weight by knowing where to make a line thicker/thinner is the most important part of line quality! Then knowing where to place the lines by going slowly and making deliberate choices. (People practice this by only drawing with pen on paper, which makes sure every line you place is done with intent and if you do make a mistake, to work with it and adapt. Honestly I should do it more often too) You can also try drawing from the elbow or arm to make your lines really stable, or use a stabilizer on your brush. Oh and this is a pretty general tip but use references!! They're so helpful for visualizing the end goal for the drawing and you can easily spot any errors. They really make you more confident!

This was so long TTOTT I really don’t think I’m qualified to give out advice but I hope this helps! and thank you for the ask, it was helpful for me to analyze my own art 🫡 I hope you're doing well too and enjoy your day today! ☀️

#asks #rookyrooks #to be honest i actually enjoy the process of undoing and erasing lines... it's mindless meditative work almost #this does mean that i draw Super Slow though...

[quibbs126]

I said I’d post the other piece I did for VASE, so might as well do it now

This character you see here isn’t a character I already had, she was entirely made up for the drawing. The entire thing is solely based on the song Papercut by Zedd. More specifically, the middle part of the song, where the music is starting to swell (around the 3 and a half minute mark is where it starts)

For some reason, this song, along with most of the songs I’ve heard by Zedd, just give me these visions in my head that comes from the song. Like, I hear the songs, and I see something from that in my mind. Some of them, this song in particular, gives me this…bursting feeling in my chest, like an explosion of colors, ideas, emotions, just everything. I don’t really know how to describe it, but do you get what I mean? I’m not sure, maybe I’m just weird. But anyways, at the time this was one of the only Zedd songs I’d listened to, so I did my art piece based on that

Also side note, but you should totally listen to that song, as well as the rest of the album, True Colors (if you’re a fan of electronic music that is). Two of the songs were on the radio some years ago, I Want You to Know and Beautiful Now, but honestly the entire album is full of absolute bangers, I love every song in the album, and they all feel distinct enough that I don’t get that burnout I usually do when listening to multiple songs by the same artist, where they all start to blend together and sound the same. Probably because every song has a different singer. Also you should check out the album Clarity. I know the song itself is really good, but there are other songs in that album that deserve love too, a particular favorite of mine being Hourglass. Though it came out a few years before True Colors, and I’d say True Colors is basically the improved version of Clarity, so maybe check out Clarity first. But yeah, check out the music, it’s so good

This piece took me in total, around 10 and a half hours, but that’s also because I redid the entire thing to change the hands all the way from the sketch. The original took about 6 hours, and the redo took 4 and a half. Unfortunately I probably won’t make any pieces as grand as this, given I don’t have that sort of time to spare (we were given time in class to do our art). I try, but usually I end up getting sidetracked before I can finish the sketch

I kind of consider this my best piece I’ve drawn, and I hope you like it too

Also I’ll show you the original picture too

#I also have some ideas for pieces before and after this moment in the song #I was debating what point in the song to draw and I came up with this #but anyways #original characters #digital arwork #vase #illustration #my art #zedd #might as well #also if you’re wondering I got high markings for my art #however I did not go to state as my art wasn’t in the top rankings #:(

[bogkeep]

pretty much every time someone asks “how do you get good at art” the answer is going to be “practice”. on one hand, i get that a lot of people feel dissappointed by this, because Practice sounds like a chore, but on the other hand - isn’t it such a beautiful thing that Anyone Can Get Good At Art? what else would you want the answer to be? “you just have to be born good”? “you must purchase these very expensive art making tools and go into debt to attend prolific art school”? “you must sacrifice all of your livestock with a silver knife under a worm moon”? there isn’t any easier answer, and i’m pretty sure most of us are vaguely aware of that. art is a skill and skills need practice, no matter where you start out. i KNOW not everyone starts out in the same place. not everyone has the same time, the same space, the same health, or the same resources to Create. art is going to come more intuitively to some than to others. but it’s like - the story we’re told about famous western artists is so often about their ~*Innate Genius*~ and that’s just not true. who ends up as the Greats of Art History has little to do with innate ability and much to do with resources available to them. who had funds, supportive families, connections? who were allowed to apprentice or attend schools? and then - what counted as art, art classifications, which types of art were Great art? what art got seen? what art survived history? who wrote the history? who reads the history? y’know. society stuff!! and if we even look away from the past and onto Today: pretty much anyone can be an Online Artist - all the internet is your gallery. but even so there seems to be some kind of weird misconception that follower count equals skill equals earning lots of money as an artist. that’s... Also Not True. this whole tangle is multiple very big and nuanced topics i’m not gonna go into too deep for now, but - building a follower count and internet presence is its own skill. networking is its own skill. having a large following might not even give you any particular advantage, depending on what you want to achieve - you’ll have a bigger platform for sure, but it’s still a learned skill to utilize it. not every artist with a steady art job has a large follower count, nor does everyone want to have that. you don’t need thousands of followers to do commissions. and most notably: of course it’s easier to find cool artists with large following counts than small ones. of course that’s gonna warp our perception of it. basically... there’s many different skills. but the very cool and neat thing about skills is that they can be practiced! yes, yes, i know it sounds boring, but it doesn’t have to be. i get that the first impression you get of the concept of Practicing Art is to sit down and sketch from life or whatever. you can do that if you want! but when it comes down to it, the MOST fundamental thing about practice is just Do A Thing Multiple Times. honestly, the way i got ~*Good At Art*~ i largely attribute to doodling in my notebooks every single day at school. just drew cool birds and pretty girls over and over and over again. if you draw enough anime eyes you’ll get really good at anime eyes. draw fanart for your favourite thing. it doesn’t have to be more sophisticated than that!  you don’t even have to post it or share it. it can be just for you. just... find an enjoyable way to make art where you’re at. put on a podcast or an hour long video essay, get some cheap paper and random pens and just doodle and see where you go. if you wanna do a thing you gotta do it! don’t be afraid of being bad at things!! every bad thing you make is a step to making another thing. have fun i love you

#apologies to people who follow me on twitter and essentially read the same ramble twice #i have a Lot of feelings about art!!!!!!!!! #dont be so hard on yourselves!!!!!!!!!! #you have nothing to be afraid of #i know some people are shitty but dont worry i will launch them into the sun for making you enjoy making art less #art advice #too long for twitter

[lepusrufus]

This my have came off as rude or weird but like

Is there any tips on sketching?

Like the way you sketch is just

✨ Chefs kiss ✨

Not rude at all!

And mm I never thought about it actually since I don't exactly have a set process per se with sketching, unlike I do with other parts of drawing, but some tips that I believe would be beneficial if you want to improve on it:

Life drawing! Nothing better for practice than sketching out the things that surround you. You obviously don't have to go out for this, just look up pics of what you'd like to practice. Personally this one helps me when I'm having a hard time with proportions when going off muscle memory alone so going back to basics is a good way to fix that

Get comfortable with action lines. It can make or break a drawing later on if you don't capture the fluidity of movement that you need in a pose early on

Don't add lots of details from the get go, try to pinpoint the pose you want, then the proportions and then add the rest

Try to get comfortable with expressing what you need in fewer lines (something I still struggle with tbh)

Try out warm up sketches when you feel like you need to. I won't be a hypocrite and say you absolutely NEED to do them at all times since I myself don't bother with them often but sometimes doing little thumbnails to see what pose/composition/etc you like best can help immensely

These are assuming you're sketching as a base for a full drawing. However if you're asking about the sketches I occasionally post like my doodles of Donna here's how I personally go about those:

A kneadable eraser is your best friend (i personally use one from faber castell)

My steps are: very loose sketch to pinpoint proportions - erase that until it's very light - more detailed sketch - "lineart"

Ballpoint pens tend to be more forgiving with mistakes than inking pens and allow you to do very light lines so I use that for these sketches (tho it's entirely a preference thing and I mix it up sometimes)

Tho a little cheat sheet: ballpoint pens are good if you want softer looking lines while inking pens are good for sharp, clean lines, both equally useful to master

Ft a comparison between ballpoint and inking pen respectively:

Tho be careful about erasing something under the ballpoint pen lines since it tends to smudge

Consider using colored pencils as opposed to graphite since graphite tends to smudge but again, personal preference

Not sure if this was the exact answer you were looking for but remember that everyone has their own processes and it's important to get your tips from multiple sources until you put together something that works for you💕

#asks #art tips

[floralovebot]

Helia and Tecna friendship headcanons? -lambofzenith

AHHHHHHHHHH okay so

helia is really bad at technology right? pretty much anything that isn't covered in red fountain lessons, he's a complete no-go at. tecna takes it upon herself to try and help him understand basic technology a bit more and it goes so wrong. helia is literally the mom that squints their eyes and holds their phone away from their face while using One pointer finger to type everything. tecna hates it so much.

helia naturally doesn't understand a single thing that comes out of her mouth when she's talking technology but he still supports her nonetheless

helia is surprisingly rational most of the time! he's a firm Push All My Emotions Down And Then One Day I'll Die kind of person so even during really stressful missions, he's good at keeping a level head about things. tecna really appreciates this and it's not rare to see her, helia, and timmy discussing mission-related strategies During The Middle Of A Fight

tecna has a tendency to talk while she works (only noticeable around people she's comfortable with though) but she gets a little self-conscious about it. she knows it's not Bad or anything, but it doesn't seem Right either so she tries to keep quiet most of the time. helia on the other hand is so used to working while it's noisy that he's totally chill with it. they've gotten used to just vibing in the same room, working on their own things, and not actually talking to each other during it. they're comfortable around each other :) helia doesn't mind when she rambles out loud and tecna doesn't mind him pacing around the room every five minutes. symbiotic relationship.

tecna doesn't like talking about what she went through in the omega dimension, even with timmy. however, she does occasionally draw things out when she really needs to vent and can't think of any other way how. she's always been good at sketching due to her background in designing gadgets so this wasn't a weird transition for her. helia told her about this anonymous place for artists to submit their art with absolutely no names attached and after checking to make sure it was legit and she was completely safe, she started to submit one or two a year. she doesn't like to do it often but it does help to sort of "get it out" without actually talking about it.

while helia is notoriously Bad at video games, he does actually like the more "physical reality" ones (think that virtual reality tecmy scene!) mainly because it feels close enough to real life that he doesn't need to rely on just technology to do it. tecna and helia often have very competitive gaming matches but specifically within those kinds of games otherwise, he's really bad at it and she gets annoyed that he can't remember any of the buttons.

speaking of competitions, helia has an inner bet going on of How Much Can I Pretend To Not Know Jackshit About A Specific Technological Topic Before Tecna Notices. what he doesn't know, is that tecna knows he does this and has her own inner bet of How Long Can I Explain This Specific Topic Before Helia Gets Bored And Moves On. so far, the score is mostly even, with helia only winning because timmy isn't aware of this mental battle and will often jump in to explain things too. helia is very smug about this and tecna can't say anything to timmy otherwise she loses the fight that no one actually set firm rules on.

timmy is just really happy that his two best friends are also friends and sometimes he tries to invite helia and flora on their dates. tecna is okay with this only because she thinks it's funny. florelia were also okay with it but started to not be because they realized that their version of a date and tecmy's version of a date was extremely different. they've started to come up with increasingly ridiculous excuses for why they can't go and so far timmy is the only one that hasn't noticed. poor timmy, he genuinely thinks flora's best friend cactus is sick and needs care 😔

when timmy isn't available, helia will call tecna for any technology related issues he's having. on one hand, she likes that he trusts her and can rely on her, on the other hand, she's told him ten separate times not to leave his computer running all the damn time. (tecna: please turn the computer off when you're not using it. this will immensely help solve all of the problems you've been having. helia: okay so i'm gonna leave it on all the time?). he's not trying to be difficult though. he just forgets everything and assumes it should work regardless (he a little stupit).

roxy gets so much gender envy from both of them and it confuses her all the time. they have no idea what a gender envy is though and they're mostly just wondering how they stop giving it to roxy since it seems like it agitates her??? help please???? researching the matter doesn't help and it ends up becoming a meme on winx stan twt because tecna made a very official and serious post asking about the severity of "gender envy" and needing to know how contagious it is. now whenever either of them posts, earth teens just comment gender envy at them. helia still doesn't know what it means.

they don't watch movies/tv together but they will binge-watch the same shows and then talk about them later on. tecna's formatting is still very formal and functional meanwhile helia bounces off multiple points and forgets to make a conclusion. he stresses her out so much.

helia notices when tecna has stayed up too long for too many nights and will occasionally send her a "please sleep" message when he knows timmy is already asleep and can't do it. she doesn't always listen but sometimes she will, but not before sending the same message back because why the fuck is he up at this hour huh dumbass?????

tecna has a pet bird and helia has multiple cats and they absolutely cannot be in the same room together. her bird is constantly trying to fight his cats and while they're usually well behaved, he's genuinely scared they're gonna try to eat it (tecna: stop calling my bird an "it"; helia: stop putting your bird near my cats 😐)

they actually don't like hanging out when one of them is upset. they both have a hard time talking about their emotions (for different reasons obviously) and they always end up feeling like they have to say something when they're together. they just really prefer hanging when they're both in a good mood or at least calm. whenever one of them gets upset, they stop hanging out together until that person feels better.

connected to the last point, you'd think that would mean they don't know a lot about each other, but they surprisingly do! they're both relatively observant people (tecna gets better every year) and they're actually really good at figuring out why the other is upset and what would help. they just don't talk about it.

although, on a similar note, the one time they did have an emotional talk, it was about timmy. tecna was feeling upset again and worrying over whether or not she's "too logical/not emotional enough" and it was the one time where she actually allowed herself to hang out with him while being upset. they had a genuine heart to heart about things and especially about how she's way too hard on herself. they thought it would be awkward since they actively avoided this kind of thing but it wasn't! it went very naturally and helia even teared up a bit. he's very proud of her and the effort she makes every day and since that talk has been much more vocal about it.

when they went to earth in s4, they both spent way too much time learning about Earth Things; tecna about earth media (canon), and helia about animals since that's what flora was talking about. he started calling tecna "chip" after that because chipmunks reminded him of her. she disagrees with this assessment and he refuses to admit he mixed up chipmunks and squirrels. he still calls her chip to this day, and fortunately, it's grown on her. unfortunately, he calls timmy "chip" too, and now it's a hassle to figure out who he's talking to.

helia is surprisingly interested in zenith technology despite not understanding it all! he enjoys walking through the streets of zenith with tecna while she proudly points things out so he can go "ooo aaa" at everything. sometimes she tries to explain how things work and his mind starts playing elevator music automatically. tecna has gotten really good at knowing when helia is just. brain empty no thoughts because she recognizes the Empty look in his eyes. she enjoys catching it live and trying to figure out why he's just. not thinking (usually it's because he either doesn't understand something or got bored) (this happens often when sky starts talking) (sorry sky)

tecna is one of the winx (besides flora of course) that helia trusts the most. not in an emotional or friend way, but in a physical, we're on a mission way. she has good control of her magic and knows how to use it. she's good at thinking of strategies and applying them properly to the situation. and after the omega dimension, he had a newfound respect for her previously unknown to him survival skills. if he were even in severe danger, she would be the first winx he'd call (depending on the situation, she is occasionally ahead of flora).

helia is really bad at sharing details. he tends to go straight to the conclusion but doesn't share how he got there (adhd king 😌) and tecna is the best person to call in when this happens. her logical questioning makes it seem so easy because she has the patience and knowledge to connect the dots and ask the right questions. when anyone else tries its more like (helia: i'm sitting in a pool of blood; person: uhm do you know where it's coming from?; helia: probably the stab wound; someone: did you get stabbed??; helia: oh yeah definitely.)

#lamb.. i love them so much... #the comedy potential with these two are just off the roof #winx club #winx tecna #winx helia #answered #lambofzenith #mine.headcanons #ugh ik i mentioned it on the trivelia post but this made me think of the backstory i made up for helia #because tecna plays a big part in it later on in the story #i have an entire rewrite that i refuse to ever actually write ajhgljadlg #but tecna plays a big part in helia's Main Arc in the story... and its so self indulgent i just really love these two #posting now.. when no one is awake.. ajkdhljaghdlj

[shipping-receiving]

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

An Analysis of Hwang Si-mok and Han Yeo-jin’s Final Scene in Stranger/Secret Forest Season 2

Alright, it’s been almost a week, I’m still crying every time I re-watch this scene, and somehow I’ve written 3,500 words about five minutes of this damn show, so here we go:

As with Stranger/Secret Forest Season 1, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s final scene in Season 2 ended with a farewell meal, complete with soju. On a very basic level, this meal felt significant in a season where Si-mok was subject, more than ever, to interrupted meals or meals he didn’t particularly want to be present for – at least until he was able to have a drink with Yeo-jin in 2x12, and then lunch with her in 2x13.

More importantly, though, this scene is the most loaded scene we’ve ever witnessed between these two characters. That’s saying something for such a nuanced, detail-oriented show, in which two people placing their phones in a storage locker at a detention centre can possess such emotional weight, particularly when played by two actors who make very subtle and sophisticated acting choices.

I’m struck particularly by the way this scene bursts with subtext – things unsaid and unresolved – when Lee Soo-yeon could just as easily have written a neater, more light-hearted exchange that reaffirmed their connection, more along the lines of their final scene in 1x16. There are a thousand other ways their farewell could have been presented to us that would have given a greater or at least a more comfortable sense of finality, even taking into account their character development over this season. This lack of resolution is evident not just from what happened during the scene, but also when the scene happened within the episode itself. The meal occurred after Yeo-jin had been bullied by her colleagues, but before she met her new boss – at this point, it seemed to the viewer that her promotion would likely bring not the pride she experienced in S1, but more challenges and isolation.

More so than the Seo Dong-jae cliffhanger, this scene makes me think that this was written with a future Season 3 arc in mind, one in which Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s relationship will continue to evolve and deepen substantially (whether that will be ‘romantic’ remains to be seen). Considering they’re the core partnership of this series, there was a deliberate withholding of stability in their farewell, rather than an affirmation of it. I won’t go so far as to say destabilisation – because despite their separation, I think their bond is more profound than ever – but at the bare minimum an absence of certainty, when it could have been written otherwise.

Anyway, on to the breakdown:

The scene opens with Si-mok carefully folding a napkin and placing cutlery on it for Yeo-jin, a simple gesture of care that Cho Seung-woo plays with a startlingly gentle attentiveness. Immediately, it signals that there’s been a shift in Si-mok – how he’s able, at least with Yeo-jin, to do something that isn’t just polite, but also thoughtful. The director even snuck in a little clue that Si-mok is thinking of Yeo-jin as he’s doing this – Yeo-jin actually appears at the left side of the frame from the start, as the camera pans over to Si-mok: 

In this shot, Si-mok is visually separated from Yeo-jin by a pillar. This could be read on the one hand as a kind of sectioning out of his mental space – a visualisation of his thoughts of her as he prepares her cutlery – and on the other hand, as a foreshadowing of their impending separation. (I do, however, enjoy the first interpretation more. It reminds me a little bit of her sketch of the inside of his head from 1x06.)

Back to the napkin: if you look closer, Si-mok didn’t fold a napkin for himself – his spoon and chopsticks are on the table next to his bowl – so this isn’t just a matter of neatly setting the table for their meal. In a very small way, he’s anticipating her needs, just as she has done with him in much more demonstrative ways in both seasons (helping him with his headaches being the most obvious one). This isn’t something he’s necessarily actively worked on in the past two years; he’s still the person who doesn’t instinctively say ‘hello’ over the phone, or ask after someone’s kids without being reminded. Yet, it’s a capacity for care that has expanded significantly, at least where Yeo-jin is concerned.

Compare his behaviour with the equivalent scene in 1x16 – back then, he only ordered a bowl of noodles for himself and not for her. Interestingly, Yeo-jin’s comment to Si-mok during that part of the S1 scene was, “Gosh, you haven’t changed one bit,” suggesting that he was, by nature, somehow unable to be considerate to someone else. Just from the opening to the S2 scene, we see that that comment is not or no longer true, at least when it comes to the way he acts around her. In both the S1 and S2 scenes, he was the first person to arrive for their meal; in S1, the first thing he said was, “Why are you late?” and had already ordered his soju and noodles. This time, however, Yeo-jin asks him, “Why didn’t you order something first?” – implying that although she was late again, he was patiently waiting for her to arrive.

There’s also a difference in the way he responds to her appearance. Now, I personally don’t think we can frame Si-mok’s connection with and care for Yeo-jin in conventional understandings of romantic attraction (which is not to say romance isn’t possible for them canonically, I just think it will manifest differently). Nevertheless, I’d say that he responds to her haircut in a way that is probably as close to the mechanics of attraction as we could possibly expect from Si-mok – not just the shock of “oh, you cut your hair,” but lingering looks and nostalgia for when they first met; nothing at all like noticing that she’s wearing lipstick and saying, not so kindly, that it looks weird. In fact, in a direct parallel to this moment in 1x16, Yeo-jin asks him if her haircut is “weird”, and he says, “I just meant it’s different.”

(I think the way he stares at her is not wholly due to being ‘transfixed’, but also because he’s trying to figure out what such a drastic change means, and why now, and whether he has to worry. Basically, his brain is trying to compute; part of his stare is him trying to analyse her behaviour, just as part of it is him revisiting his memories of her from two years ago, and part of it might well be an attraction he doesn’t quite understand or know how to reel in. He does stare at her for an inordinately long time.)

Switching over to Yeo-jin, I really enjoy this little routine of hers when they have meals together – how she narrows down options for him to a series of questions, and even helps him decide on occasion. It never feels like she’s trying to speak for him, but rather that she knows his likes and dislikes. Her question in this scene – makgeolli or soju – is phrased like her question in 2x02, when she asks him to choose between stir-fried octopus and hot pot; when she specifically requests a lot of cabbages, she must be thinking of how he ate lots of them in 2x12. This kind of care comes naturally to Yeo-jin – we’re talking about the person who took in a murder victim’s mother in S1 – but it’s still a form of intimacy, and one that Si-mok is clearly used to as well.

Soon, though, we have our first indication that things might not be so comfortable – not in the sense that their bond has weakened, but that there are fundamental shifts occurring in both of their lives that affect this bond. Si-mok, after a lot more staring, points out that her short hair reminds him of when they first met. (He wouldn’t have needed to take that much time to come up with that simple observation, which makes me think he was trying to choose his words carefully.) With enthusiasm, Yeo-jin responds with, “I haven’t changed a bit, right?” – echoing her comment about Si-mok in 1x16.

Perhaps Yeo-jin had meant this comment sincerely in the moment, but given context, her cheerfulness feels performative. We’ve just witnessed her crying after being bullied by her colleagues, in contrast to the warmth that she enjoys with her old Yongsan team; we’ve observed her changes – a result of maturity, disillusionment, a loss of innocence – throughout the whole season. In fact, she seems to have cut her hair precisely because she feels weighed down by all that has unfolded, just as one might after a break-up or some kind of painful life event. It’s a decision that seems to say: I acknowledge that everything has changed around me, but maybe doing this will make me feel like myself again, or the ‘myself’ of two years ago.

Si-mok, of course, isn’t quite so able to agree that she hasn’t changed. Multiple times this season, he’s observed the changes in her – “You don’t draw these days?” in 2x06, “Didn’t you want to work in police administration?” in 2x08, “You weren’t the kind of person to postpone things.” in 2x12. Now, he doesn’t respond to her question, and instead looks at her in silence, smiling only ever so slightly when she shakes her head playfully (and we know that she can make him smile wider than that). Perhaps he’s even choosing to withhold any judgment of her. But this is a moment, I think, that factors into his decision to ask her that question at the end of this scene.

Next, we have confirmation that Si-mok was the one who asked Yeo-jin out for dinner, just as he had in 2x02 once he’d settled into his new posting. It isn’t clear in 1x16 if it was Yeo-jin who’d asked to meet Si-mok when she found out he was being posted to Namhae, but it’s been affirmed twice this season that he prioritises this time with her (even more so than meeting his own mother). Then, he breaks the news to her that he is leaving for Gangwon Province this weekend.

In 1x16, Yeo-jin finds out that Si-mok is leaving from the special investigation team, without Si-mok being present. At the time, they still think he’ll be sent to the US for training, and Yeo-jin is visibly disappointed. She has the same crestfallen look on her face in this scene, in front of Si-mok. She doesn’t want to be separated from him, and when she asks about his cases, it seems she’d expected him to stay for quite a while longer to see them through. Mind you, Wonju is only about 1.5 hours drive from Seoul (yes, I mapped it), but Yeo-jin still looks like she’s had the rug pulled from under her. Perhaps, in an uncertain time, she’d hoped that Si-mok would be in her life more than the few weeks he’d spent in Seoul.

Yeo-jin’s responses in both 1x16 and 2x16 are a pretty big indicator that she has feelings for Si-mok (whether she’s aware or willing to acknowledge those feelings is another matter). I suppose one could argue that her reaction is simply out of sadness at the thought of being separated from a friend, but based on certain events in S2 – for example, Choi Bit questioning Yeo-jin about her relationship with Si-mok, and Yeo-jin deflecting – I think the viewer is at the very least meant to question whether their bond is truly ‘platonic’. This isn’t the type of show to include superfluous details just to tease their viewers, and in any case, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s connection has only deepened through the course of this season despite being on opposing sides of the council. It feels like the emotional stakes are much higher this time than back in S1.

As Yeo-jin is absorbing this news from Si-mok, there are a couple of little details here that feel significant to me, but could be nothing: first, the way Si-mok half-holds out his hand as Yeo-jin is pouring her soju, just as he’d held out his hand when she was pouring makgeolli in 2x13. Second, how she pours out a cup of soju for herself first, but not for Si-mok. In any other situation, it might seem impolite – after all, Si-mok is the one who’d chosen the drink – but here it seems that she’s pouring a drink to steady or busy herself more than anything, and she doesn’t drink from it till after their toast.

Following this, Yeo-jin confides in Si-mok that “I never thought the council would end like this. [...] Will the higher-ups be replaced with more honest people while I’m catching bad men out there?” When he replies with, “Why are you talking as if those two are the same?”, it’s yet another of his probing questions, questions she never seems to have an answer to. The Yeo-jin of old would never have assumed that all the higher-ups are dishonest – she has always seen the good in people – but she feels betrayed by Choi Bit, the one person she sincerely respected. Here, she changes the topic rather than opening up, reverting to her most comfortable mode of showing care for someone else by asking Si-mok why he looks so tired. It’s a guardedness that we’re not used to seeing from Yeo-jin; when Si-mok met with Choi Bit at the start of the episode, he describes Yeo-jin as someone who “opens up easily”, even if she doesn’t “blindly trust or respect just about anybody”.

While Yeo-jin is evasive, Si-mok is more willing to be vulnerable in comparison. His openness isn’t surprising, given that Si-mok has shared more about his life and thoughts with her than with anyone else, but it is still heartwarming to see. Instead of brushing off Yeo-jin’s comment, he tells her about his dream of the prosecutors from the Western Office. For anyone else, this might not seem like a significant conversation topic, but for someone who hardly ever dreams (which Si-mok mentioned in S1), it feels like he’s sharing something special with her. This dream, and his factual recounting of it, seems to be a means for his brain to process the traumatic events of two years ago.

Before Si-mok tells Yeo-jin about his dream, there’s a quick insertion here – a lament about seeing your boss in your dreams – that suggests that she is still troubled about Choi Bit, more than she’s letting on. Again, Si-mok doesn’t push her to elaborate, though I think he’s been absorbing all the things that seem off with Yeo-jin since she arrived. Yeo-jin proceeds to analyse his dream in her head, but doesn’t verbalise her interpretation (that Yoon Se-won might be considering suicide, since he went off in the same direction as two characters who have both passed). As she’s deep in thought, Si-mok tilts his head questioningly at her; she says that he probably won’t have time to go anywhere else this weekend, implying that she was thinking of bringing him with her to visit Yoon.

Knowing that Si-mok won’t be able to come with her, however, leaves Yeo-jin resigned. As she announces, “All right, then,” I wonder if this is the moment that she’s choosing to steel herself. The two people she treasures and respects most in her life (Si-mok and Choi Bit) are disappearing from it, and she will have to learn to move forward without them.

Now, we come to their toast. In the corresponding scene in S1, their toast is bittersweet, but has a sense of resolution; upbeat piano music plays in the background as Yeo-jin says, “Goodbye, I won’t be able to see you off,” while Si-mok echoes that with, “Good luck in your new position. Sorry I can’t attend the ceremony.” In S2, the music is quieter, and much more sombre – I’ve been describing it in my head as ‘breathy sad wooooo music’ – even as Yeo-jin laughs and says, a little helplessly: “It feels like we keep repeating this.”

Si-mok, on his part, doesn’t even echo her laugh with anything more than the barest smile. Instead, he says, with a deep sincerity: “Take care, Senior Inspector Han.” As I mentioned earlier, there are many ways that they could have written or played this scene to convey even a little more resolution – choosing different music, or having Si-mok smile along with Yeo-jin, or even giving Yeo-jin a bit more notice of his departure so that she can prepare a gift (as if to say, she doesn’t draw as much these days, but she would for his sake). But the viewer is made to feel all of their reluctance, even sadness at this separation, even if those feelings are hidden beneath pleasantries. “Well, I guess I’ll be okay,” Yeo-jin says, as if there’s a possibility that she won’t be – that this is something she has to recover from in the future.

Si-mok considers her words, her phrasing, her demeanour, tilts his head at her again and says: “Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

This, above all other lines, shows how much Si-mok has grown in the past couple of years because of Yeo-jin’s influence. Whereas he started S1 cold, guarded, and isolated from the rest of his colleagues, he has arrived at a point where he has cultivated enough of an emotional sensitivity to ask her this question – to show her care, just as she has shown care to him and other people around her. I’d even venture to say that Si-mok feels, himself, that there’s a chance he won’t be as okay with their separation as he might have been two years ago. In 2x05, during the conversation with Seo Dong-jae outside the prison, Dong-jae asks Si-mok: “You don’t feel a tad bit sad even if you’re sent far away, do you?” Si-mok answers, “No.” That doesn’t feel so definitive anymore. There isn’t anything either Si-mok or Yeo-jin can do, given that they both prioritise their careers and understand that these careers follow a certain trajectory, but parting feels a little bit harder this time.

Yeo-jin answers Si-mok’s question as reassuringly as she can, with an adorable smile and shake of the head; she lets out an “ah” after she downs her soju, as if to reorient herself. Yet, her cheerfulness in the rest of the scene – her excitement at the food, her over-enthusiastic chewing – rings empty as the sombre music continues to play in the background. For perhaps the first time in the entire series, there is something about Yeo-jin that seems feigned. Strangely, it is Si-mok’s blank expression that represents the more authentic emotion in this scene – communicating the very resignation that Yeo-jin must be feeling inside, beneath a facade that might read as comical in any other context.

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?” is, in fact, the last thing that Si-mok says in this whole scene, despite quite a few more lines of dialogue from Yeo-jin. The way he looks at her for the rest of the scene, though, is charged with meaning. It seems to say: ‘I don’t really believe that you’re okay, but I’m going to give you space because I can tell you don’t really want to talk right now.’ It’s not as if Yeo-jin hasn’t confided in him before – their phone call in 1x15 was especially intimate – so it’s not that Si-mok is incapable of listening to her. Still, he respects her choice to deflect, and continues to observe her closely while ignoring the pajeon, even leaning forward right at the end of the scene. This very overt concentration on her is something we’ve never really seen from Si-mok before; even in the rooftop scene in 2x06, which is probably the most loaded scene they share after this one, they’re standing beside each other and rarely make eye contact. Here, his focus on Yeo-jin is palpable.

As much as this scene felt heartbreaking to me (thanks breathy sad wooooo music), it actually left me with a lot of optimism for the development of their relationship in the future. Lee Soo-yeon has said that she has enough material for five seasons of the show, and while I’m not so sure we’ll get as many seasons as that, it feels like she’s pushed Si-mok and Yeo-jin out of their comfortable friendship – planting the question, “is there a chance we won’t be okay?” I wonder if we’ll see something quite different in the third season (which is apparently in discussion!), which surely won’t see them on opposing sides again.

I’ve been burned by enough ships that can potentially be read as ‘platonic’ to know that I shouldn’t hope for any overt romance, but Si-mok is such a unique character and has such a unique connection with Yeo-jin that I’m hopeful that their relationship could be deepened with nuance, even if it doesn’t become romantic in ‘recognisable’ ways. (I have other thoughts on his asexuality/aromanticism that I won’t get into here.) It’s precisely because their connection is built on mutual trust, respect, and understanding that it remains so compelling, and I think this scene promises growth, and some resolution, whenever we see them next.

#tvn stranger #secret forest 2 #stranger 2 #stranger #hwanghan

[phoenotopia]

The Last Phoenotopia Blog Update

(Date 2021 MAR 01)

I debated how to open this blog post, but perhaps the main crux of this blog post is the best place to start. The blog is being retired.

The purpose of this blog was to be a "development" blog for Phoenotopia, and well, Phoenotopia's development is done. I'll still be doing bug fixes and maintenance on the PC and Switch versions, and playstation and xbox ports are underway (by a publisher). But I'm not going to be making any more major changes to the game. At some point, you put the paintbrush down and say it's done. Blemishes and all.

Recent Events

The game launched on Steam last month, and like any launch, it was hectic. Bugs Galore. This is our first commercial PC launch, so it was a real baptism by fire. Unlike Switch's one configuration, the PC has multiple configurations and factors to account for. The game needed to be able to handle multiple control schemes, screen resolutions, refresh rates, and more! I had a 60Hz monitor going into launch and didn't know anything about Hz (I do now). There was a troublesome stutter that some players were sensitive to that my whole team didn't notice since our eyes compensated it away. There were a few times where in fixing something at one party's behest, it introduced problems for another party. A few times, due to disorganization, I unwittingly rolled back a fix that was meant to be applied. For some, the game couldn't play at all (really glad Steam allows refunds).

It was messy. It was tiring. I.AM.BEAT.

I think the worst of it is over... I'll still be around to do the last updates and bug fixes, but I'm ultimately ready for what's next.

SO what is next?

What isn't next... is Phoenotopia 2. As you may have heard down the grapevine, the game couldn't be what you call successful. No one's earned even minimum wage on it.

Maybe there's hope in the game's long tail. A year or two down the line... maybe. I won't hold my breath though. At some point in the past few months, I finished processing (or grieving) and it's time to move on.

The game has at least earned enough for us to continue our modest operations. As long as we don't expand the team, and we don't take another monster six-year dev cycle like what Phoenotopia took, we can continue. We'll have to be smarter and faster. Perhaps the most valuable thing we gained from all this is experience.

The Experience

It is a dev blog. Here are some of the lessons I've accumulated from this game's development.

- Have a good menu design. Menus aren't just that in-between fluff before you get to the good stuff. Menus are KEY. Your menus need to be robust, expandable, and *understandable* (to you, the developer). Because once the game's out, you will invariably be asked to add more options. And if your menu design is bad, every time you have to add a new menu option, it becomes a whole new pain all over again. Support mouse from the get-go, etc.

- Focus on features that people will actually care about. For instance, I've never seen anyone praise the camera's zoom feature. In practice, people try that feature a few times and then never use it again. But that feature was a constant consideration factor for every level. Run through it multiple times to make sure the level didn't break, think about which zoom levels made sense, resize rooms because they worked at one zoom level but not the other, and so on.

- Don't do boxes that you can move around. Other 2D platformers avoid movable boxes because they're a huge headache to program and they really complicate the game space. Enemies need to respond to boxes you throw in their path and either navigate around or attack it. When you're moving the box, you have to worry about constantly changing your collision size and reconciling when the box gets snagged on the environment. The boxes were also a constant source of bugs because people can manipulate them to soft-lock themselves and more.

- More focused script. Phoenotopia's 100,000+ word script was panned more for being bloated than it was praised for being lengthy. Long scripts take a long time to write and make the game more unwieldy, increasing the costs of translation and upkeep. Every update we're addressing some textual error or mistranslation. There are some highly renowned games (e.g. Hyper Light Drifter) that do without a script at all!

- Be flashy! A bat and a lightsaber take the same amount of work to program, but the lightsaber will draw a lot more attention and interest.

- Slopes, surprisingly! Six years ago when I started, Unity was ill-equipped for 2D games. If you used the physics that Unity provided you'd have a really floaty character that wouldn't adhere to the slope when going downhill. There were a hundred different tutorials saying different things (use forces, use move position, use translation, etc). You can get rectangular collisions done in a day, but to do slopes took weeks. Meanwhile, games can actually get by fine without slopes. Most people won't even notice. Did you know the Phoenotopia flash game didn't have slopes? Neither does Hollow Knight or Rogue Legacy. You can save yourself a lot of work by avoiding slopes.

(big entities look weird on slopes. Bad slope!)

I could write enough little knowledge nuggets like this to fill a book! But I'd rather just make the next game. 

So… what IS next?

As mentioned previously, it's not Phoenotopia 2. Pirate and I are mostly just tossing some ideas back and forth right now. We'll go silent for a year (or two). Our next game's scope will be more modest in some ways, more ambitious in others. It will definitely be more smartly designed. (There will be a map!)

We'll announce it when it's ready for the public. It might be necessary for us to do a kickstarter. I've tried to avoid kickstarters having been burnt on quite a few myself and also because I worry that mismanaging a kickstarter would earn the ire of backers.

But I did keep this blog regularly updated for six years. So I've gained some confidence in my abilities to at least manage a kickstarter well.

Is it really the last Phoenotopia Blog update though?

Okay, not really. There is some news that I'll need to announce, and this blog is one of the game's main outreach channels. Here are the events that will cause me to update the blog:

Announcing the launch of the xbox/playstation ports when they're ready

If a physical edition of the game happens

If a new language is getting introduced into the game (Korean is a high possibility)

When we're ready to talk about our next game

If (BIG IF) we begin development on a Phoenotopia sequel. I do want to do a sequel one day if we have the means and the demand is there. 

Those updates will be more on a "when they happen" basis, rather than me reporting in every couple months.

Fan Art

As always, I'm very happy to see fanart of Phoenotopia. Major thanks again to Pimez for collecting all the artwork from the corners of the internet! Since this is the "last" blogpost, Sir Pimez can finally take a rest from collecting the fanart :P

ÆV made a series of pictures that tell a story. A Pooki is humanely sheared of its wool to create a hat. The Pooki is unharmed. Nice! Gotta love Gail’s expressions.

Amagoo Mazeru makes a stunning landscape shot of a full moon and shooting stars. It’s a sharp and clear vector art. I like the faint glow of the moon and the fire and the subtle gradient in the night sky. Very skillfully done!

Hah hah. I got a chuckle out of this one. I imagine this is how Gail's enemies see her by the end of the game. CaESar made this image based on TerminalMontage's famous youtube videos. Nailed it!

CrownStar drew two pictures of Gail. I'm a big player of JRPGs, so the first shot instantly reminded me of Persona 4's art style. (Hmmm... Phoeonotopia as a JRPG... there’s potential there...) Next, Birdy is shown carried off after her defeat. I really like Birdy's expression here - she just seems mildly uncomfortable.

There's a bit of a story behind the first image. As Firanka shares it, she wasn't able to defeat the Big Eye monster at the end of the flash game, so she believed a tall tale that what awaited after was a 6 armed Kobold boss. Hilarious! The second is a rendition of the lonely Anuri elder. A rare subject. The loneliness is portrayed well here. I feel lonely just looking at it!

Koo_chop draws the clash between Gail and Katash at the top of the towers. I really like this interpretation of the game's art style. It’s faithful to the in-game graphics. And the lighting, from the glow of Gail's bat, to Katash's sword, and the lightning in the background... Amazing!

Lime Hazard shows Gail with a salute pose. Very appropriate for this occasion. I also like how there's a slight tilt in the angle that Gail is portrayed. Those dynamic angles are always hard to get right, and Lime Hazard pulled it off very skillfully. See you next mission!

Lyoung0J with a digital painting of Gail posed sitting on a rock. I like how it almost seems like she was caught in a candid moment - she’s smiling, but also feeling self-conscious. Cute! The art style really pops, and I like how Gail is sporting what I call the old anime style nose. 

MyUesrNameIsSh*t with a sketch of Gail performing a skillful slingshot. I like how Gail is depicted with her tongue out in a mischievous manner, the way all mischievous people with slingshots do.

Niitsu Kentaro returns with a 2021 Happy New Year picture. That happened didn't it? A New Year... Gail's pose gave me a chuckle with how she seems to be waving the bat around as casually as one would wave hello. And "Phoenotopiyear"... Well said! One day we'll have our Phoenotopiyear...

Ochan Nu breaks all records with a stunning NINE pictures in one session :O

There's so many goodies here. My favorite would be the one with Gail staring intently at the screen - it's like she's looking directly at you. You almost feel uncomfortable.

Next, there's an Animal Crossing villager dressed as Gail and sporting her pink hair. It even looks like a house Gail would live in. Gail is a connoisseur of the arts and likes Mona Lisa. Yes :)

There are various comics of Gail pointing out Gail's weird food habits. A picture of Fran looking really cool, and even Gail rocking a bathing suit. (bathing suit image linked here in case NSFW). Wow!

Pimez didn't just collect the arts, he creates them as well! This one, which he aptly named 'The Year 175' is a depiction of when the dragons invaded the towers as told by an elderly Daean woman. Great pixeling skills! I got a good chuckle from the ice dragon leaving with its stuff slung over its shoulder.

Quo made a stunning picture of Gail playing the flute surrounded by the 5 musical notes and the Phoenix logo behind her. The theme seems to be "fire" and it works really well. Gail herself looks awesome depicted in her red suit - it's like she's leading a marching band!

Rai Asuha depicts Gail in the late game with her red suit, and night star bat, and holding a lamp. She looks ready for adventure! I really like the white outline here and Gail's poofy shoulders here - the art style feels reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics.

Seri also draws Gail bearing her late game equipment. Unique to Seri's drawing is how all of Gail's equipment is accessible from a pocket on her shirt. I also like how Gail is depicted with her lucky earrings - that accessory is often forgotten.

Treedude depicts Gail with a bat and wearing a funny smirk. She looks like she's ready to hurt someone!

Warotar returns with everyone's favorite Great Drake, Bubbles! It seems so happy to be featured!

I'm really grateful for all the fanart this game has received. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

Closing Notes

Pirate drew a picture to mark the occasion. It shows Gail enjoying a hot chocolate with marshmallows and a pumpkin muffin. A rest well-earned...

Goodbye! Until next time!

#phoenotopia