#i first came up with idea in like 2018 and sketched some designs

[thatonecrookedsmile]

You know, one thing I don't like when I digitally color sketches is that the colors end up looking a little desaturated because of the paper. It doesn't look bad, I guess, but I have to eventually find a way to "fix" it eventually.

Anyway, today marks 6 years since BATIM Chapter 4 was released. Damn. I know I say something similar every time I recognize the passage of time, but it's hard to believe that it's been more than half a decade since this chapter came out. Time passes, I get older, it's crazy! And I wanted to do something to celebrate. I've never been able to do anything to celebrate this chapter's anniversary since 2019. Which is a shame because "Colossal Wonders" is my favorite chapter in BATIM. Some of my favorite moments from this game are in this chapter.

And every year I try to do something to celebrate the anniversary, but I never manage to do it and it sucks! And as usual, what I really wanted to do this year didn't end up happening. I'll probably do it at some point later, but there was no way I could execute the idea I had in mind in such a short amount of time. But I still wanted to post something today, so something small will have to do.

In this case, oh hey! It's Bertie and Lacie! In recent times I've been going back to old designs of mine of the human cast of the Bendy universe, and since CH4's anniversary was coming up, I thought it would be good to update my designs for both Bertrum and Lacie. It's been so long since I last drew them, so it's about time. I liked the general idea of the last versions of them that I did in the past, so I tried to keep those ideas still, in a way, but at the same time giving them new life. Lacie falls more in this case, tbh. Bert still maintains some of the previous idea, but I had to change a few details. He still looks good, tho.

I originally wanted to put Jack Fain here too, because,by all accounts, Jack Fain only came into existence with the release of CH4 and the remasters of the other chapters. As much as you can put him on CH2's anniversary,he, at the end of the day, was only introduced on April 30, 2018. Problem is, I didn't like the drawing I made of him. I don't know, it wasn't that good in my opinion. And I didn't want to redo the drawing again (this would be my third attempt) and I wouldn't have enough time to redo his part. So today we'll just have Bernie and Lacie. Sorry Jack. Maybe next time, when I show my CH2 cast designs in one place.

Once again, happy anniversary to Chapter 4! This is my favorite chapter of the game to date. It includes some of my favorites from the story, it has several surprises that caught me the first time I saw the chapter, it brought new updates to previous chapters that added things that I still like to this day (and this goes especially for CH2) And overall, it's a pretty cool chapter me thinks. 👍

That one day we can hear more from Bertrum and Lacie again.🙏 (Especially Lacie. Seriously, don't you guys think it's wild that Lacie is the only one of the human cast of BATIM who hasn't appeared in practically anything since the first game. Like, yeah, she's mentioned in the Handbook, but other than that, she's not mentioned in nothing else after, whether in games or books. I think about this from time to time. Truly one of the Bendy characters of all time)

#bendy and the ink machine #batim #bertrum piedmont #lacie benton #batdr #bendy and the dark revival #crookedsmileart #if you want a fun fact: The first design I made of Bertrum; which was in 2019 in I believe; #I wanted him to be similar to his model that we saw in the game; #at the same time taking a little inspiration from his VA;Joe J. Thomas #I think the design actually worked? but I wasn't happy for a while #so I ended up redesigning him; moving away from the canon accuracy a little; and doing my own thing #and this ended up continuing with subsequent updates #I think this current design is a bit of both ideas; details based on how we saw him in the game; and my own details #and yeah;the monocle has been around since the first design #and yes; the bow tie is kinda weird with that shape #but I think the great Bertrum Piedmont is allowed to wear ties of any type of shape; even they are a bit strange #Lacie's design hasn't changed much in recent years; the main idea has remained the same #The most changes she went through were changes in the color palette #the one I ended up using in the end is what we see above #I think it's what suits her the most (at least; it suits my design of her)

[askfallenroyalty]

since the epilogue is close to ending, here's some sketches of wip designs

this is very rambly so i'll add ID descriptions later, sorry. (its 4am for me rn)

Frisk looks too older, they've only aged 2 years. both chara and asriel's designs here are SO beta and non refined. I think this was drawn even before Flowey came out -I wasn't sure how much of the trans aspect was going to come into play. I initially wanted the comic to end with Chara and Asriel reconciling after the Toriel-Asriel Airplane Call scene, but realized that there was too much unsaid between the two that needed to be hashed out and the epilogue had enough to cover already.

It was going to be a last minute "oh btw, since coming home Asriel is trans now, deal with it" but THANK GOD i didn't just sneak it in like that and explored the topic in the comic instead.

I forgot where this artwork was saved so I tried to draw it back from memory a few months later:

Chara's form was starting to come together -i assume this was around the time that Chara got their boss monster form in the comic itself. I like that Frisk has a Bi flag shirt here -I should of gone with that! The cheeks are more square but ultimately I thought age 15 wouldn't allow for that much of a change. so yeah, this is what an adult frisk would look instead.

oh! for funsis: did you know i was originally going to have the other fallen humans be skeletons instead of different monsters?

I thought it was too similar to insanelyadd's skeleton fallen kids. I actually am friends with Addy now, but then I had to message and be like "🥺is it ok if i also do this i swear i'm not copying" to which they were chill about. ultmatly i felt the designs were to Sans-like and didn't allow for much creativity. (also why tf does Hol have green instead of cyan colors what was wrong with my computer or me in 2018 lmao

I always wanted to show the kids age and progress throughout the comic. oh my god the hair is SO anime here ouch! anyway I wanted Chara to really lean into the "prim and proper" role they give themself. I thought it was so cool to have them cut their hair short in the back and have long hair in the front. (wait. wait, thats what Chara does now in the epilogue. huh.)

honestly??? i like "pissed off librarian" vibes this frisk has here. Also weird to see my Frisk without an afro!

sadly no beta adult asriel designs. no idea why i never drew any then.

Here's me figuring out how Chara should have a monster form -here's proto boss monster chara, as you can see i planned out the red hair aspect early on enough that this was before the timeskip happened.

um. anyway, pre-epilogue concept sketches. I think Raine had bird wings at this stage?? dang wild. Don't ask why Franky looks like a new yorker paper boy. Hol looks too much like a raggedy ann which is funny. Ursus... well, they probably won't look much different.

Hol eye concept art. done before they were revealed in the comic itself. ..........less said about this the better

And lastly, chara's boss monster design drawn right before they showed up. First one drawn <- left to right <- You can see I wanted Chara to have a hippy/punk design, but realized like, that jacket was going to be a binch to draw over and over. so i simplified it, and then was like, "ok this is TOO plain, i need SOME detail" and got very close to the final version.

alright since I know some people like color ref sheets, here

Continue Arc full cast. Was SUPER annoying to scroll thru to find the right character lmao

hol's prequel story color ref -actually changed the Berry's hair color last minute and never got around to updating the color sheet. was very annoying to hand-color pick from a previous page instead of using the ref :/ smh @/ me

Baker's Trouble.

OLDIE. From the Start Again? and Christmas sections of the tumblr version. God. Hol is so small. Asriel looks like a mess. Good lord.

Cancelled Christmas Arc. Chara was supposed to meet up with Asriel on a boat offshore of Monsterland for Christmas, but turns out Asriel was using Chara as publicity. Except... not fully. He did want to meet up with Chara, but they get the wrong impression that Asriel was only doing this for image's sake. It'd explore how the public views Chara as an idolized figure and how Frisk plays into that too.

Anyway the story was too ambitious and I should of started this on December 1st instead of days before Christmas. Plus, I wasn't happy with how I started it and the vibes were off. I might have this as a side story in the redraw but idk

Back to the Epilogue. I changed Asriel's dress just a little bit to improve the body shape silhouette (the dress is so plane its like she's wearing a towel! gah! I should have added SOME flair to that dress dang it!) anyway the dress is more... swooshy? swirly? and the teal ties up to the neck which works nicely with the heart locket and bow combo. Actually. Shit. Why didn't I just put the locket OVER the bow i'm so stupid that'd be so much easier-

If I could redo it, I'd make some changes...

now here's the cousin and sib groups here. Flowey is actually a little TOO big and not up to scale which is funny hehe (also more blocky looking??? weird) In the Redraw version I'm modifying Raine's dress to have a sash and other details, this thing is TOO plain. Franky's Mad Scientist like outfit could of just been an actual labcoat and ideally, the fact that Franky wasn't at the party could of foreshadowed that they knew it was going to be reloaded.

(...Which, actually, Chara's surprise was a surprise for me as well. That was a impulsive idea that came to me when we were getting very close to meeting with Chara again. Thus I couldn't foreshadow it. Redraw WILL have better foreshadowing U_U;)

ACTUALLY SCREW IT for the remainder of the epilogue, i made some changes I wanted to add detail and change some designs a tad -mainly to make the designs more distinct from each other and for story continuity. (AKA: Asriel and Papyrus are supposed to be the only "red scarf" wearers. Asriel's bowtie is knitted like a scarf. previously, hol and yun had red bows which made this match up less distinct. mew Mew's design was a little too similar to Sans' and Alphys and needed some changes.)

anyway i think thats all i can share now! thanks for reading and hope you guys keep following the redraw. I really really want a completed version of this story that's not missing holes. i want AFR to be complete and well, even with the epilogue ending, it won't be "done" for a long while. But thank you guys, it's been a journey!

If you hadn't guessed, I might be finishing the epilogue today (tomorrow for me, cause i'm going to bed in a few minutes). Depends on how much I manage to draw today, but yeah. Chara is going to the party, we'll get to say hi, close some loose ends and come to end. worst case scenario, i'll have to do a little comic to tie it off (like I did with the main storyline's ending) at a later date and this will be the end of the ask-able portion of the epilogue.

#redraw #meta #ooc #afr

[fearingear-blog]

Works in Process

Pertaining to semester based projects and artworks I mainly have projects being done in Maya. For my into to modeling course I have just recently finished up a room assignment where I created a cave space (images pending). The cave was a culmination of multiple source images where I gathered inspiration to create the space and assets for the environment (First set of images). After having wrapped up the room we moved onto the creation of a character to either place within the created space, or to have as a stand alone model. The model idea I decided to create was for the cave I worked on, the character being a robotic miner. The idea for the cave was that it was long abandoned and devoid of living humans. In my mind the robot had a more intricate design that at the moment would not be viable for me to create as it would not directly fulfill assignment requirements as far as I’m aware of, but one day I may revisit the idea in my free time. The robot miner/explorer that I decided to fit the cave with has a human figure with padding and such for protection, an iron jaw, and a collection container strapped to its back. The idea behind the robot being there is as an observation and exploration robot rummaging through the remnants of what the human miners left behind. This concept came from a show that I used to watch around 2017 getting a new season this past September, the show being Made in Abyss. The theme of the show is cave exploration and traversing an unknown space that very few have gone to with no chance of returning to the surface. 

Another course project I am currently working on is my Character animation course. My portion of the course had just wrapped up an assignment where we have a character run from a standing position, jump over an object or hole, land and run after the landing then coming to a stop. This was a challenge as I haven’t animated in nearly a year and a half, but I was able to successfully complete the assignment and I’m proud of the result. The next assignment is to have a character running, picking up an object and throwing it. 

A side project I've given myself is to fix relatively minor issues with the model I am using. The model I chose for these assignments is one that I created for my thesis, he has some deformation issues with his joints and body solids where they over extend. It has taken a while to get fixed to a point that I feel comfortable with but part of what I enjoy about my artworks at times is the aspect of problem solving and the gratification of getting the result you wanted or an even better one. 

Aside from these projects I occasionally do small sketches/drawings and origami. Coming to school again has given me the lost drive to do more origami like I used to, but that could honestly be an escape from cognitively facing other tasks while being physically present. Sometimes when folding the paper I feel mentally absent and able to pass the time at a speed otherwise not possible. Its also an easy medium to put down and start back up after being gone for some time. I also occasionally sketch flowers, but that occurrence is SUPER rare. I personally like darker colors and shades, but I thoroughly like pink for objects that typically aren’t pink when someone mentions the thing; tree tops for example are predominantly green world wide with the fall colors happening in the fall, but rarely pink. I feel like I am drawn to it because when it belongs to a natural occurrence because its like the true vibe of pink. I think as a summary: I like pink in nature far more than, or as opposed to, a manufactured items colorway.

The two first robot images are what I did in around 2018 during a shift. Every once in a while I revisit themes and types of drawings and this semester for the assignment may have been that kind of time. 

This image is the robot miner concept. It showcases a front and side view, which is customary for modeling characters, for clarity of what I want the design to be. The note on the bottom was left just in case I wanted any changes in its design later down the line.

This image is a closer representation of how I wanted the robot to be, less human and more of a golem style build. My initial idea for the robot was to have it be this big build for a more durable design to deal with the heavy materials in the cave. The body is like a hulk-esque size with metal plates covering the fragile components and gears. I wanted to have it covered in minor rust and some greenery to show age in the metals.

This scene is a portion of my thesis project showing the character that I modeled. I don’t have any in progress images for fixing the body issues, but just as reference the character is here to give a visual idea of what I am working with. This is the same model I am using for the animation assignments.

This image was taken years ago and I had completely forgotten that it was still in my photo album until this weekend. I was walking home from my daily walk and saw this blooming from a nearby houses bush. I took the picture because it stood out so much and around this time was the best time to get an image of blooming plants before the wilt of weather or age was visible. I had planned to draw it when I got home, but I never did and ultimately forgot about it. This is unedited, just look how vibrant it is and its natural!

This was done on Monday, the 24th, during the end of my shift. I drew this as my own flower style after having stared at artwork that utilized peonies as the main subject of the pattern. The initial idea behind the design was to imitate the flower itself, but I kept leaving and coming back to it to the point of the flower taking its own shape as an entirely different thing. I feel like it was an unconscious experience to remembering I had the image of flowers without remembering it and my mind wanted to draw it that badly even after that many years. The flower in this sketch is a similar magenta/pink tone as the picture I took, but with a bit more of a tint of white. 

These shoes were “customized” by me about a year or two ago. I am not great with gift ideas and forget I know how to do art, so initially I just purchased these ready to pass them on. I felt lazy and decided to paint on them, and this would be the first time I have done anything like this so I was nervous. The first attempt was a huge flop so I covered it with white and the mixture of red/white/yellow that I did. The outcome started to look like clouds so I rolled with that, later making me think of Hawaiian sunset commercials. Thinking of Hawaii made me feel like it should have some form of a floral design, so I started going in with magenta and red until I had a base shape. I should have used image reference but was too lost in the sauce to go back for one so I kept going until I felt comfortable with the shape. I layered white in small increments to get highlights and give more depth and body to the flowers followed by the yellow innards. Not wanting to ruin the gift I stopped myself before I did too much and felt way better with this outcome than the previous. Sadly the giftee doesn't wear them much :’)

This box is made of 12 post it notes combined together. There is no glue involved nor is there any tape or cutting (against Origami rules). The cube is held together by nothing more than folds that align in such a way that allows for a solid grip. Within the cube is a pair of swans I made days prior to this which made me think of this combined work as a bird cage. The initial idea was to use used sticky notes instead of throwing them out so I didn’t use fresh ones, and its worked as a desk art piece and a convenient way to keep previously written down bits of info for me to look back to. 

[seahdalune]

Seana’s 2020 art highlights (a thread)

(Note: this is a reupload of a thread i did on twitter a few years back. so these are really old.)

January: i didn’t draw anything complete that month.... closest thing i could find to finished is this art i made of my OC, Angelord. man. remember when i drew my OCs? [2023 note: it's..... funny you say that. you would try to start up an original comic for the entirety of next year.... not that it ever came to fruition.]

February: i finished Link’s Awakening that month. i drew Marin bc i thought she was cute. i wish i could get motivated to draw fanart of recent video games i finished more... this is probably the last proper traditional art i made this year... after this, it’s mostly digital.

March: look. i’m attempting anatomy... and i failed lol. i remember being like “how do you draw woman” after drawing this... i mean. i still wanna know how to draw woman, so i guess i haven’t changed lol. [2023 note: I STILL DONT KNOW HOW TO DRAW WOMEN]

April: wait NVM here’s another traditional piece i made this year. he was an adoptable i made... but nobody was interested in them so he’s with me for now. i’ll try and redesign them, either to sell them or to keep him. [2023 note: i never sold this guy.... i was lazy and nobody values points these days. probs for the best because scamming children with virtual coins is probably not a good idea lmao. at the same time, i wish there was an easy way to buy and sell designs+commissions without having to get a credit card or paypal or something.]

May: another month where i didn’t draw anything. buuut i did some plush sketches to reference so das dat. [2023 note: you'll probably be able to name most charas here, but who's the guy i drew the most? that's Matteo, he's a little pink vampire and i made him through Gatcha Life.]

June: ah. the month where i started digital art. this was fanart for my friend’s OC. i didn’t know a lot of features of digital art so it looks like shit LOL not the first digital art i made ever, but it might as well be. [2023 note: i actually received my tablet around 2018, but i never had time to draw on it because i had 1 hour of screentime every day. this restriction was finally lifted in 2020 (because online classes) and i finally had time to venture out into the world of digital art...]

July: i made a lot of stuff this month, but to shorten the list... i finished the plush of my OC, Matteo. i wanna make another plushie... maybe with Suitcase.

this was also the month i joined the OSC... oh hell. it’s been 6 months?? [2023 note: 2 YEARS BITCH. ITS GONNA BE YOUR 3RD ANNIVERSARY if i didn't get so tired and started to hate the community so much.]

August: ...ergh. lets get over with this month quickly... Object OCs this. Object OCs that.

occasional Algebians.

i do not like the art here... it really shows that i’ve improved. ok let’s get outta here. [2023 note: i fucking despise the person who asked me why "they were old" to my humanizations of the Dangos. this is why i refuse to join another public server ever again and might have contributed to the delay of my human drawing skills.]

September: lots of Taco II. i seriously liked her a lot. still do, but the love is a bit more spread out between characters.

oh. and i watched ONE that month. cool.

October: i finally found a style that i could weld. hooyah.

don’t ask why i drew my friend as a cat maid... i thought it was funny ok.

September: the month of gift art. nothing else to say, but i like the thin lines. yes, ‘thin’. ...god i need to think of better things to say. [i would then realize i said the wrong month, and unlike tumblr, i cannot edit tweets once published, so my only option was to delete the whole thing and start over. or just say this:] did i just say September... oh for fucks- no i am not fixing this i’m already tired of this just imagine i said November ok

December: best art of this year so far (doh) nothing to say. just... happy that i improved. can’t wait to improve even more.

[hey look! i was in the 2020 JnJ christmas video! thats me! me!!]

aaand, that’s all for this year! man, i thought i was done with improvement. i can’t believe i proved myself wrong. usually other people do that for me lol. lets see if i can disprove myself again in 2021.

#dalune recap 2020 #dalune recap

[ochomachuu]

damn these neets look gnc af

#osomatsu san #ososan #osomatsu #karamatsu #choromatsu #ichimatsu #jyushimatsu #todomatsu #machuu art #i first came up with idea in like 2018 and sketched some designs #and then forgot about them #they have finally come to fruition

[trcelyneart]

OBAN Star Racers 15th Anniversary

Hi fellow Oban fans!

As I said in a previous post, today was the celebration of Oban’s 15th anniversary, which was held in Paris in a little cinema. It was obviously hosted by Savin Yeatman-Eiffel himself, as well as Stanislas Brunet who worked on the mecha and background designs.

So it went like this: Savin made a presentation about the series in itself, how the idea came to be, the first sketches made by himself and his friends, and all the struggles he and Sav! The World studios faced during the production. The hardest part was finding funds to produce the series, since making a single episode can cost up to half a millions euros.

The French VAs of Molly and Aikka were there too, and they redubbed one of the scenes live! The funniest part was that the guy who did Aikka’s voice is a tall, bearded, burly guy with the kind of voice you’d expect from a dude with that build; and yet when he did Aikka’s part I was speechless!!! Then Savin invited two people in stage to redo the dub for fun. The girl who did it had a voice that strangely sounded like Molly’s, but the poor guy who did Aikka’s part probably didn’t remember the passage well despite the subtitles and stammered a lot. But it was nice!

Savin had planned to talk about The Two Queens movie but he didn’t have the time. I asked him about the project afterwards, and he told me that he still wanted to do it, but like Oban, he had troubles funding it. By the time he pitched it, Netflix was not into funding indie projects yet. He also started working on other projects with several studios so The Two Queens had to unfortunately be put on stand-by.

And then. OH THEN. He talked about the thing we ALL wanted to know:

The Sequel

Savin explicitly asked us to not film or take pictures, so I won’t talk about it in detail. But basically there is not one, but THREE project ideas:

1) A sequel based on the picture released back in 2017 with a brand-new plot but still related to the Oban lore. He doesn’t know if the girl would be Molly or Molly’s descendant.

2) An Aikka spin-off prequel. I WAS SO HYPED.

3) A sequel where Molly takes up on Aikka’s offer to visit his planet.

He tested the waters to see which project seemed to please us the most, which was project 1 - I told him, to quote my own words “I’m team Aikka, so my hype for the second project is HELLA BIG, but I honestly won’t care I’m willing to pull out the chekbook as long as it’s Oban related” - and project 2 was rather popular but we suggested he switched media (like making a comic).

I asked him the same question I asked Thomas Romain when I met him at the Japan Expo Sud back in 2018: could we help funding it through Kickstarter for example? Unfortunately, like the original series, we’re talking about millions of euros here so we can’t help that much.

Then we moved on to the next part: VIDEO GAMES. There was a Nintendo DS game originally planned but the studio let him down at the last minute. He showed us some footage of the game which looked quite good (mid-2000s DS game relatively speaking).

He also officially announced that today was released an Oban fangame via Playstation Dreams called Oban Star Racers Dreams by Sky Isle Studios.

There’s also another game - still in its project phase - for PC which would hopefully be released in a few years.

Last but not least: if you guys follow Savin Yeatman-Eiffel on twitter, you might know that he got back the rights of Oban and has been gradually collecting the dubs that had been made (apparently the Brazilian release stopped at ep 18, which means they never got the end!!) to re-release the series as blu-ray. The said blu-ray collection will be up on Kickstarter in Frebruary 2022, with several stretch goals and packs - from the complete OST digital release to packs with original drawings and figurines - so stay tuned!

Although he knows the fandom never died, Savin hopes that we can gather new people and touch a larger public. I suggested for example to release the show on Netflix, because it will find some new public!

#célyne talks #oban star racers #prince aikka #molly wei #eva wei #jordan wylde #oban star racers sequel #savin yeatman-eiffel #thomas romain

[makeste]

an index of Horikoshi Kouhei interviews

these are organized by date, oldest to newest, and I’m including a brief bullet-point summary of each to make it easier to look up specific interviews by content.

also, please note that although I haven’t spoiler tagged this post, the interviews from roughly 2019 onwards include some spoilers, so please watch out for those if you’re anime-only or otherwise not caught up with the manga. that said, the other interviews I think are all good.

putting this below a cut to keep things tidy.

interview with Horikoshi Kouhei and Kishimoto Masashi, May 2015

(note: this is not the actual interview word-for-word, but includes the highlights)

Horikoshi talks about being a fan of Naruto when he was growing up

Horikoshi says he was inspired by the way Kishimoto shows emotion through drawing hands, and that he loves drawing hands thanks to Naruto

Horikoshi mentions that Gaara is his favorite character and that he really liked the Chuunin Exam arc

Kishimoto praises BnHA and says he knew it would be a hit when he read the second chapter

they talk a bit about the worldbuilding and the process of creating a story where 80% of the population has superpowers

they discuss Naruto and Sasuke’s rivalry and Horikoshi mentions that he found it “frustrating” and that he really liked the Valley of the End and thought it would be the end of the series. he says it was very emotional

they talk a little about the stress of writing manga and about the toll it takes on mental health

pre-anime interview, April 2016

talks about his reaction when he found out BnHA was getting an anime

talks about how the series originally came about

says that BnHA is the story of Izuku and All Might and that their story is the “vertical axis” which runs through the main story

says there is also a “horizontal axis”, which is the side characters and quirks and all of the other elements that he considers to be the “fun part” of the story which mellows out the darker aspects of the vertical axis

mentions that he really likes drawing and writing Bakugou

mentions Deku vs Kacchan 1 as one of the early highlights in the series for him

talks about Ochako being someone who has a more cheerful relationship with Deku, which balances out some of the heavier aspects of Deku and Katsuki’s relationship (again, horizontal vs vertical axis)

mentions that if he could pick any quirk he’d pick a “no need for sleep” quirk

talks about reading Dragon Ball as a child

mentions that he really likes American comic book heroes, especially Spider-Man

mentions Goku and Spider-Man as the two that come to mind when he thinks about heroes and what it means to be a hero (specifically, that Goku is the “win” aspect and that he brings reassurance to everyone, while Spider-Man is the “save” aspect who helps other people)

talks about hearing Deku and Bakugou’s voices in the anime for the first time, as well as Ochako, Iida, and All Might’s voices

another pre-anime interview with konomanga.jp, April 2016

(note: this interview is in Japanese, but Google translate does a servicable job with it)

talks more about Spider-Man, including his favorite costumes and comic artists

gives some American comic book recs

mentions that he likes Godzilla and Gamera and always goes to see those movies

talks about his Star Wars influences

talks about his favorite manga as a child -- Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Naruto

talks about becoming a manga artist, and about some of his influences

says that he likes drawing monsters, creatures, and villains, and says that he really liked drawing the panel where Tomura made his first appearance at USJ

talks a little about composition and frame movement in his work, and about the challenges of drawing a weekly manga

mentions that he knows what the story ending will be, but hasn’t yet figured out how to connect the dots to that point

interview with Horikoshi Kouhei and Umakoshi Yoshihiko in BnHA: Ultra Archive, May 2016

(note: Umakoshi is the anime character designer for BnHA. also, this interview was part of the Ultra Archive character book, so you’ll have to scroll a bit through its other contents in order to get to the interview.)

they talk about the process of creating the BnHA anime and sketching out all of the character designs. Horikoshi says the anime character model sheets look just like how he draws them

they talk about Horikoshi’s obsession with drawing hands lol. Horikoshi mentions that the way Mike Mignola (the creator of Hellboy) draws hands was a big influence

they talk a lot about art and drawing in general

Horikoshi talks about Ochako’s character design a bit

they talk about the differences between drawing manga and doing animation

Umakoshi talks about his first impressions of BnHA

Horikoshi mentions that he still has a lot of ideas for characters and quirks that he hasn’t been able to implement yet

they talk about the different character designs and which ones they find easy, difficult, and fun to draw

they talk for a fair amount of time about Iida’s character design

Umakoshi talks a bit about other anime he’s worked on

they talk about the character of All Might, and Horikoshi ominously says that All Might’s future will be “a fairly sad affair”

interview with Natalie Comics, June 2018

talks about the 4th anniversary of BnHA, and the release of BnHA: Two Heroes

talks about the Basement internship arc and mentions that it was challenging for him to write

talks about the question “what is a hero?” and how he defines heroes

mentions Mina, Sero, and Shouji as characters he would like to/plans to feature in the future, and mentions that he already has a story planned featuring Shouji

talks about the popularity of the series

talks a little about Koike-san, his first editor

talks about Two Heroes and its development and story

talks about club activities at U.A., and which clubs Deku and Katsuki would be in

talks about his mom and about some of his childhood experiences which inspired scenes in the manga

talks about why he became a mangaka

talks about what percentage of the series is completed, mentions the original planned length was about 30 volumes but that it has obviously surpassed that

mentions that he has an idea of how the last arc will be planned out

interview with Horikoshi and Eiichiro Oda, August 2018

Horikoshi talks about being a fan of One Piece and mentions he even sent artwork to Oda which was included in one of Oda’s galleries

they talk more about OP and about favorite arcs and how it’s influenced Horikoshi’s work

Oda compliments Horikoshi’s art and they talk about cover artwork and coloring (Horikoshi mentions he uses Photoshop)

Horikoshi talks a bit about BnHA Two Heroes

Horikoshi again mentions that he originally thought BnHA would be about 30 volumes (Oda says he should shoot for 50 but Horikoshi laughs and says he’s not sure he can do ten years)

they talk about how fucking long OP is and how manga stories tend to expand once the story starts taking off

Interview with Anime News Network at SDCC, August 2018

talks about his love of American comics, especially Spider-Man, and says that American comics are a lot more mainstream in Japan nowadays thanks to all the superhero movies

talks about how he got started as a manga creator

talks about being inspired by Dragon Ball, and that All Might in particular was inspired by Goku

talks a bit about the process of creating characters

talks about Bakugou’s popularity and that it took him by surprise at first

mentions that he doesn’t have the stamina for BnHA to be a long series like One Piece

interview with Cinema Today Japan, December 2019

(update: here is the link to @hanashimas​‘ translation which is more accurate)

talks about Deku and Bakugou’s characters and their attributes

mentions that at the start of the story Bakugou thinks Deku is above him, so he tries to act intimidating and superior to overtake him

(ETA: apparently this is a mistranslation; he actually says that he intended for Bakugou to be a character who was “above” Deku so to speak, who Deku would eventually surpass. he then goes on to talk about his realization that Bakugou could actually have a much more interesting character arc, which of course we have since seen play out.)

mentions that he planned to have Bakugou and Deku improve on two separate vectors as they entered U.A.

mentions Deku vs Kacchan 1 as a turning point where he had some realizations about Bakugou’s character that humanized him for him

mentions that he always knew Bakugou wouldn’t turn evil and “would never lose to the darkness”

says the scene where Katsuki takes Kirishima’s hand at Kamino was bittersweet because it showed Bakugou’s growth, but also showed the ongoing gulf between him and Deku because Deku knew that Katsuki wouldn’t take his hand

mentions that Bakugou still needs to apologize to Deku

says that Kirishima, Kaminari, and Mina are among the easiest characters for him to draw because they take the initiative and get the other characters excited and help pull the story forward

mentions that he always hears Nobu’s voice in his head now when writing Bakugou

talks about the characters being high school kids still, and that when he expanded on their families he was conscious of that -- “I wanted to show that these protagonists are still children after all”

interview in Volume R (booklet that was released along with Heroes Rising), December 2019

talks again about his manga influences and what inspired him to become a mangaka

talks about the experience of getting his first manga published

talks about what inspired him to write BnHA

has an interesting quote where he talks about the vaguely desperate feeling of “trying one last time”, which was weighing on his mind when he created BnHA, and which also played into Deku’s motivations in the first chapter

mentions All Might as being a character that he’s attached to

talks about his reactions to the anime, the overseas popularity, and the first movie

talks about his heavy involvement in the production of Heroes Rising

talks about designing and creating the bad guys for Heroes Rising

talks about the creation and character design of Hawks and mentions that the original character design was going to have a bird head lol

mentions that Hawks will have a relatively big influence on the story in the future

talks about how the ending of Heroes Rising was his original planned ending for the series

talks about Bakugou’s character development which leads up to that moment

talks about the conclusion of the series, and that all of the characters will come together in the end

interview with all of the past editors of the BnHA manga, March 2021

(note: this is another interview that’s not translated word for word, but summarized. also this interview was with just the editors, not Horikoshi himself.)

they talk about the early reception to the manga, and Horikoshi’s reactions

they talk about the individual moments early on when they realized that the series would be “amazing”

Yoritomi mentions that Horikoshi came up with the designs for most of the Billboard Top 10 pro heroes at the last minute lol

including Hawks (all Horikoshi had decided on prior was that he was going to be “cool” and would be a spy)

everyone praises Horikoshi’s character designs in general

they talk about the start of the anime and that whole process

they mention that Horikoshi cried watching both of the movies

they talk about the overseas popularity of the series

each editor lists their favorite episode of the anime

they talk about Horikoshi sacrificing his original manga ending to be used in Heroes Rising

they talk about that one ending theme song in season 4 that showed the pro heroes’ childhoods, and that Horikoshi had the anime team change Hawks’s to match the backstory he had planned

they talk about the upcoming season 5 and send final messages to the fans

interview in the MHA Drawing Smash Exhibition Pamphlet, April 2021

Horikoshi talks about the art in the exhibition and about the process of creating the artwork

he mentions that the piece with Deku rescuing a falling Ochako took the longest to draw

he says the drawing of All Might was the most fun to draw for him

that’s pretty much it, this one is very short lol

interview in Jump GIGA Spring 2021, April 2021

talks about which characters will play an important role in the final act. specifically mentions Hawks, Ochako, Shouji, Shinsou, Monoma, and Sero

“many characters’ actions will converge into a single one, so maybe the best way to say it would be ‘keep an eye on all of them!’“

says that for Hawks’s flashbacks and the Todoroki family’s past, he was influenced by Sion Sono’s works

mentions that the drawing of Deku and Ochako from the MHA Drawing Smash exhibit isn’t directly related to the main story, but that while drawing it he kept in mind how their relationship would develop if he explored it deeper

says he had the final act (or at least the chapter 306 reveal part of it) vaguely planned for a long time, but started to think about the specifics in volume 21 during the Endeavor vs High-End fight

says he’s already decided on the ending, and that “the path to it has been longer than I initially expected, but the main elements that I’ve decided before starting the series are still the same”

Q&A trivia from Vol. W World Heroes’ Mission, August 2021

(and alternate translation by aitaikimochi)

talks about All Might not having many friends among the pro heroes (but says he’s become “slightly attached” to Aizawa since he started teaching at U.A.)

describes what Bakugou, Tsuyu, and Mineta’s rooms look like

talks about Jirou and Momo’s relationship and the kind of things they like to talk about when they hang out together

says that Shouji’s face will eventually be revealed, and that he is “not sure” about Hagakure’s :’)

talks about the types of YouTube videos Shouto watches (pretty insightful answer which is equal parts sweet and sad)

says that Midnight’s classes were the most popular among the students

says U.A.’s robots once rebelled against their creators (lol wtf)

says his three favorite movies are Akira, The Ring, and Spider-Man: Far From Home. he says Akira in particular is his bible

and that’s it for now, but I will update this post with future interviews as they are posted, and if anyone has links to an interview I’ve missed please let me know.

#horikoshi kouhei #horikoshi kouhei interview #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha reference #makeste reads bnha

[blancamz]

“It’s Over Isn’t It” Reanimation progress

Honestly one of my favourite parts about animating is posting the WIPs online. Here’s the step-by-step of how I went about doing my reanimation for the end section of “It’s Over Isn’t It” from the Steven Universe episode Mr. Greg.

1) Idea and Prep

I was flicking through Steven Universe: Art & Origins. I think at the time I must’ve been between jobs or bored or something, because it came into my head to do a bit of animation based on the pilot style SU. I’ve always been quite fond of the pilot style, especially Pearl’s David Bowie / LaRoux look. The little tux design by Hellen Jo was quite snazzy as well, so I decided to have a go at doing a segment of “It’s Over Isn’t It”, using these designs.

I traced the turnaround from the book in Clip Studio Paint and approximated Jo’s design to it. At first I had the colour turnaround, but did the low-colour turnaround with the heads to give me a better idea of where the lines are and proportions of the body. I also get a clip of “It’s Over Isn’t It” and trim it down to the section I want to do.

This is a long one so strap in.

2) Sketch Pass

I’ll be using gifs that show the first 100-130 frames of the animation, because the full segment is 22 seconds long.

Very very loose animation of what I’m going to be doing with this segment, done in Adobe Animate. I have a video of the real segment in the corner of the stage and audio in the timeline, and closely reference them for layout and acting.

I’ve decided I want to go really nuts with the animation. Lots of angles on her face, smooth movement, secondary animation / follow-through on her various clothing elements. Technically her earring’s supposed to be on the other side but I want to animate that flailing around dangit, so I change it so it faces the camera.

3) Rough Pass

I tidy up the rough I did somewhat. It’s still very rough, but Pearl is better proportioned and the motion is more complete. I get a better idea of how she moves by focusing on drawing keys (the most important drawings) and breakdowns (drawings that help you figure out the motion a little bit, without full animation). I have Pearl, her suit, ruffles and earring on separate layers so I can turn things on and off or lower their opacity as needed.

4) Tiedowns

At some point between the rough and tie-down phase I realized that I’d been animating at 30fps instead of 25fps like I’d meant to, so I had to end up shifting all the roughs I’d been doing. Bad news: having to wrestle with getting the timings I’d so carefully planned out in the rough to still look good. Good news: I have to animate and clean up 5 fewer frames per second, so that’s 110 fewer drawings to worry about. Yussssss. For reference, the above clip has now gone from 132 frames to 107.

During the tiedown phase, I go over the roughs and more carefully try to match the proportions in the turnaround. I keep a flattened version of the first frame of animation to use as reference thoughout to prevent morphing. Sometimes when you’re animating, things will get bigger or small as you re-draw them, so it’s good to have a base drawing to refer back to and make the sizes stay consistent.

At this point I’m way more aware of reasons behind the big design change for Pearl between the pilot and the show. She’s so dang skinny and tall with that extra poof of hair up top that she’s really annoying to frame up. If you want to keep all of her in the frame, there’s going to be tons of empty space.

I also find that my turnaround isn’t enough reference for Pearl’s awkwardly-shaped head. I snap me a bunch of screenshots of pearl’s head from different angles and collate them into a big sheet.

5) Inbetweening

Inbetweening, aka filling out all the gaps in the timeline between the keys and breakdowns. If you’ve done your keys and BD’s well, inbetweening can be a pretty straight-forward.

But I’ve got like a million bits of secondary animation to content with, which means this still takes a significant amount of time. The hair and ruffles have to move a little later than the rest of the body, and some parts of the ruffles have to move at a different rate from the rest. I’m trying to animate like there’s wind since Pearl’s on top of a tall building. I keep animating until it feels good enough.

This is what my timeline and stage look like in Animate by this point. The animation is mostly on 2s, with some 1s, 3s and 4s thrown in when needed.

6) Cleanup and Colour

I did the cleanup in Toon Boom Harmony. As a program, I like it was more than Animate, even though it isn’t without it’s flaws. But it’s also really dang expensive. Fortunately, by this point I’d been working on the upcoming Deadendia series for Netflix. What with the pandemic, we were working from home and the studio gave me a license for Toon Boom. So I exported my frames from Animate, put ‘em in TB and started cleaning up.

I’ve found that cleanup is something that’s often offloaded to new or less experienced artists at studios because blah it’s just tracing the rough animation. But you’ve got good cleanup and bad cleanup, and a good cleanup artist will compensate for flaws in volume and have a good, clear and natural line.

I’m not terribly fond of doing cleanup myself. I feel I tend to end up rushing, which leads to sloppy work. I tried really hard to keep up a standard here.

7) Comping

a.k.a. Compositing, the final layering of the various elements before exporting a film. Another stage I don’t quite care for because of its nuances. Also drawing backgrounds.

I admit that I’m not very good at drawing backgrounds or environments. I tried to do the one for the second shot of this animation, since it was acutally really important. In shots 1 and 3, you don’t really see the ground or even the railing that Pearl is leaning on, but 2 is a wide shot. My first attempts at it were unfortunate. Fortunately my husband @joe-sparrow is both good at backgrounds and good at imitating the style and colour palette of the show. He volunteered to do the BGs and I accepted. See mine vs. his:

So yeah, get me some nice backgrounds, put the animation on top, then fiddle with a couple of elements in the comp to give things a little bit more depth. During this stage, errors that had happened during the animation progress that I hoped would just go away became annoyingly obvious, so there was a fair bit of going back to fix them.

So that’s how I done made this animation. I started April 2018 and posted in on January 1st 2021, so that’s over 1.5 years it took me to do these 22 seconds of animation. However, I wasn’t working on it continuously through that time. Sometimes I’d be working on it every day, other times I’d not touch it for weeks or months at a time. It really depended on how busy or whatever I was at the time. I think if I’d been working on it non-stop, it still would’ve taken me at least like 2-3 months to finish it.

If you made it to the end of this post, I hope you found all this information interesting.

Happy drawing.

It’s over, isn’t it.

#animation #wip #art #Flash #toon boom #fanart #steven universe #pearl

[weaverofthreads]

On the process of writing a novel...

Ok, so this began as a DM to a very dear friend who had said they were super excited to work on a novel of theirs that they'd abandoned for years, but they felt a bit lost when looking at the project again. They had "too many characters, too many intrigues" and they didn't "know how to create order" for all their ideas. They didn't know "what to keep, what to remove, what to change" and wanted to know if I had any tips.  

I began to reply in messages and then realised I needed to make a whole post out of it, so here it is! All 3k words of it. This is for you, darling! I hope it helps.

Things I found extremely helpful when planning my novel for NaNoWriMo this year, after also taking some time off from it.  

Most of this comes from Alicia Lidwina’s Four-Part article on her NaNoWriMo prep process, and setting up a writer’s notebook, for 2018. You can find the link to the first part here and I highly recommend you check out the whole series of articles for a more in-depth read. 

Content of this ‘essay’: 

Preparation, Groundwork, and Materials

Project 'Stats' & Overview  

Mood, Moodboards, and Key Imagery

Things to Consider, and Important Bullet Points

Get to Know Your Characters  

Chronological Order

Tangential and Preceding Events

Basic Premise, Plot Definition, Sub Plot Ideas  

List of Locations

Scenes

Chapter Outline

NaNo Plan

Additional Notes and Tips for Writing

Ok. Let's begin.  

First of all, I'm not saying that this is the only way to write or organise a novel. It can be tackled in as many ways as there are writers in the universe. This is just the method I used to get my ideas crystallised and organised. 

Preparation, Groundwork, and Materials.  

Take your preparation seriously. I bought a cheap but still nice A4 sketchbook with blank paper for maybe £2 at the local hobby store, and used it solely for the purposes of being my Novel Notebook. It doesn’t have to be a pretty, perfect, Aesthetic(TM) journal at all. Its function is to act as a route-guide through the process.  

I bought a cute sticker from Etsy and used it as the front cover design so that I liked the book and that it felt a little bit special, without being too intimidating to put a mark in. Then I left the very first page blank, and opened it to the first double page. On the left, I wrote ‘Contents’ and then moved on to the right and wrote ‘Project Stats and Overview’.  

I used a pen that was comfortable to write with, which for me was important. I’m a very tactile person, and having nice paper and pens (not necessarily fancy), made the process feel good.

Project Stats and Overview

This is the bare bones of the book, and includes details such as:

Project Working Title: (in my case it’s Weaver of Threads)

Targeted Wordcount: (to give yourself an idea of the scope, but it’s not necessary. For me it’s 50-100k)

Genre: (for me, fantasy)

Series: (will it be one book or more? For me, probably more than one, and at least two).  

Inspiration: (here you can jot down all sorts of things which inspire your world and your writing, and it can be anything. In my case, I began with “density and lore, and feeling of being grounded in a real world from LOTR and Tolkien.” And I went on to include other writers and novels in the fantasy genre, as well as elements from our own world, such as Mongolian herding communities and way of life, the history of the Persian Empire, and Renaissance Florence!).  

Project Timeline: Give yourself a structure, and be realistic. If you know you’re a slow writer who’s prone to distractions, be generous, but if you’re someone who responds well to short deadlines, tighten the time frame up a bit. I said “November 2020 - November 2021 for the whole manuscript” because I know I’m a procrastinator who gets dejected if they shoot past intense deadlines….

Editing Deadline: December 2021-January 2022. I know I can edit fairly quickly, so I made this one much shorter.  

Main Requirements Prior to Starting: What do you need to get sorted before you can get going? It could be purchasing a laptop or figuring out a magic system. In my case, it was the latter.  

What Happens in your novel?: This is not ‘what do your characters do?’, but what, in one sentence, actually happens in the book. For Fellowship of the Ring, you could say ‘a diverse group of people assemble and set off together with the goal of destroying the Ring’. LOADS more stuff actually takes place, obviously, but that’s probably the key thing that happens in that book. So, write the same thing for yours. I’m not going to tell you what happens in mine, because that would spoil it :).  

That took up the first A4 page of my writer’s notebook, and after that, I moved on to Mood and Key Imagery. 

Mood, Moodboards, and Key Imagery

On the left hand side of the page, I wrote down the words and concepts that sprang to mind when I thought of the novel itself. These were in no particular order or placement — just a random cloud of ideas in a rough column on the left hand side of the page — and they included: history, mystery, love, friendship, betrayal, nostalgic, homesick, sense of belonging, sense of place, searching, closeness, secrets… etc. etc.

Then on the right hand side, I wrote down five key words that I wanted to associate with the novel. These would form the ‘visual aesthetic’ in the background of my mind, and could be very easily expressed with a moodboard.

This same process (writing down words and creating a moodboard) could be achieved on a website like Pinterest. Take your time with it, find the right visual clues that really match the essence of your story, and create a final mood board with a limited number of panels that will be your novel’s ‘true north’ when it comes to feelings. If you're artistically inclined too, you could draw sketches of things relevant to your world too.  

While this stage is really important for solidifying the feeling and mood of the novel, don’t get stuck here and spend forever procrastinating on Pinterest or whatever. Once you’ve crystallised that ambiance, it’s time to move on. It’s also perfectly fine to come back to this at a later stage if you find yourself running out of inspiration or drifting a bit. Daydreaming, drawing, mood-board-ing are all great ways to work on your novel on days when you don’t feel like writing.

Things to Consider:

Alicia Lidwina asked herself some questions which helped me get past the ‘block’ that I’d created when thinking about the novel, and those were:

What scares me about this story? (in my case it was the scope of it - it was easy for me to get lost in over-thinking tiny details and get too overwhelmed to handle the big picture)

What will readers take away from it? (in my case, I hoped that it was a sense of friendship, people from desperate cultures finding common ground, and a sense of being grounded in a real, tangible world.

What is its selling point? (essentially, why would an agent/publisher choose yours over the next one in the pile?). Don’t be bashful about this. This is your notebook, so if you’re proud of a feature or aspect of the story, write it down. In my case, there is no ‘Big Bad come to destroy the world’, no Chosen One who is the only one who can stop it. There is an antagonist, but it’s on a personal scale, and that’s the selling point. It’s about two people going on a personal journey to uncover a lost piece of knowledge that’s arguably not all that world-changing on its own, but which means the world to them.  

What will be the three biggest issues in writing the first draft? Identify the three biggest roadblocks, and then take a bulldozer to them. For me, it was time management, getting mentally stuck, and the sheer darned effort of it becoming overwhelming!

Important Bullet Points  

These are five key facts about your novel, distilled from the sections above. They include: What’s at the heart of the story? How long is the story? What’s the narrative focus of the story? What are the maximum number of main characters? And the maximum number of supporting characters (this obviously doesn’t mean you can’t have other, less important characters too!)?  

Relationship between the two main characters is forefront

50-100k words

The novel’s focus is on the characters’ main goal (had to be more vague here so I didn't give it away)

2 main characters

3 supporting characters  

If you find you’ve got too many main characters (not necessarily a bad thing to have a lot of characters - look at A Song of Ice and Fire after all!), then figure out whose story you want to tell here. You can always write another story with other characters in a connected novel, or a sequel. You don’t have to tell everything all at the same time.  

Speaking of characters… 

…Get to Know Your Main Characters:  

Here you can write character sheets for each of your main characters and cast. There are hundreds of these templates available on the internet, asking questions like ‘how would your character react to [insert event]?’ etc. to get to know your character. If this isn’t your thing (it isn’t mine) then at least write down some useful information about them. Rough height and weight, hair, eye and skin colour, general temperament, and any other defining physical or mental traits. 

Next came the Chronological Order

This does not have to represent the final order of the novel’s structure, nor the order in which you write the manuscript, but you need to know what happened within the timeline, and when, in order to be really clear when you’re telling the story. You can write the manuscript out of order, and you can tell the story with flashbacks or in a different order, but you need to have the underlying chronology securely in place so that your writing makes sense and so that you don’t confuse yourself or the readers in the process.  

Preceding and Tangential Events

These don’t need to be in the novel itself, but it may be important to define the sequence of events that also led up to the moment where we pick up your story, and what is happening elsewhere so that you can be sure of these too. In my case, I defined the events that concerned one of the supporting characters’ lives so that I knew how and why they were at the point they are in the story. It relates directly to - and heavily influences - the events of the novel, so I needed to have this person’s history nailed down as well, even though I don't tell it all explicitly in the book (because that would be unnecessary and a bit dull).  

Basic Premise, Plot Definition, and Sub-Plot Ideas (plus writing a synopsis)

Alicia Lidwina defined the story premise helpfully with the following formula:

Story Premise = Main Character + Desire + Obstacle

Pick a different colour for each of these components, and write a short paragraph to explain them in the context of the novel. Alicia Lidwina used the following:

[Main Character] “Harry, an orphan who didn’t know that he’s a wizard, [Desire] got invited into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and wanted to live his school life to its fullest, [Obstacle] but a certain Dark Lord who killed his parents is trying to rise into powers again and kill him in revenge.

Do this for your novel, and keep it really short.  

Plot Definition: This is even shorter than that! It’s a single sentence!! It’s most closely tied to the desire of the character, and lies at the heart of the story. It’s most likely a distilled version of the ‘what happens in the story’ from the Project Stats page, so check that to see what you wrote there.  

Sub Plot Ideas  

Five bullet points (no more) for things that are happening concurrently and which are related in some way to the main story. For me, Kae and Tomas are doing their research, so that’s the main theme, but beneath that there are a few other related incidents.

Writing a Synopsis - developed out of the points in this section, and includes:

Who the main character is

What the stakes are (the story premise is your guideline)

What the main plot line is

How the MC resolves the problem in the main plot line

How the book ends.

List of Locations  

Start with the main ones and add to it as you go on. Write a little bit of information about them so that you have something to refer back to. I also drew a big old map which I found very helpful and also really fun to do.

List of Scenes

It’s very important to map out every single scene that happens in the novel. Use your timeline to help with this, but remember a scene is not necessarily a chapter. You can have more than one scene within a chapter, but try not to have too many.  

I used small post-it notes (sticky notes) and wrote down things like “M joins K’s clan at the fire and K learns about magic” and “K studies at Citadel, intro to Citadel, magic, and characters” as separate scenes. Once you’ve written down everything that is going to happen (this will take some time! Get a drink and some snacks ready, and go slow), you can stick them into your notebook in the order you’d like to tell the story. Some chapters may have just one scene, while others may have two or three. I didn’t have more than two in any of my chapters, and actually ended up splitting some scenes that I’d made too vague in this section into more chapters. It doesn’t have to be set in stone, but it will form a road map.  

Additions and Notes:  

I left a section of the Scene Outline bit of the notebook blank for things to add in as I went along. I haven’t used it yet, but I might.  

Chapter Outline

I arranged the scenes into the chapters already by sticking them in order, but you could do a chapter outline separately after this. It’s up to you. 

NaNoWriMo plan:  

I did this back in October, and wrote down the main goal for nanoprep, which was to finish the background info. Breaking that down further, I listed - magic (how does it work exactly), geography, and politics. 

After that, it was just a case of writing the 1667 words a day. *spoilers, I got distracted and didn’t do NaNo this year* . What I should have done, was break it up into chunks and write down my goals so that I had something tangible to use as a road map, and I will be doing that now for the novel as I take it up again outside of NaNo. Having check boxes and manageable goals really works for me. Find what will work for you, and if it turns out not to, adapt!

Some final pointers and tips:

Set regular goals for yourself. Whether you work by saying ‘I’ll write 1000 words a day’ or ‘I’ll write something every day’, make a structure for yourself. If you slip and miss a day, week, or month (I didn’t meet NaNo this year because I chose to work on another project instead *slaps forehead*), don’t beat yourself up. Writing is a craft and it takes a long time and a lot of discipline to master a craft.  

Your first draft does not have to be good. At all. Your first draft is just words on paper. A first draft is the block of marble taken from the quarry, and subsequent edits and reworking is the process of carving the sculpture itself. The editing that is done by the publisher or the professional you employ to edit it for you later, is the final polishing. Don’t be demoralised if the block of marble seems very rough when it first lands in your studio. That’s ok!  

Take regular breaks. Writing is hard work, and most people can’t concentrate on something successfully for longer than 55 min's, and if you’re doing that, you’re already doing really well. Personally, I’m at 15-20 on a good day. Write in little sprints of ten minutes or so, and then get up and stretch, look out the window, maybe leave the room, come back in with a fresh approach.  

Stretch your hands, and wear wrist braces when you work. Seriously. I gave myself tendinitis on my first major project, and couldn’t use either hand properly for weeks. The ones I have are these, and they allow me to work safely for much longer.  

Keep hydrated. Have a bottle of water on the desk in front of you between your arms as you type and sip it, otherwise you’ll forget. 2 litres a day is usually recommended, but know your body and drink accordingly.  

Treat yourself. Whether that’s something as simple as a decadent hot chocolate after your first chapter/chunk/sprint is done, or a new notebook or a pen or that sticker set you wanted on Etsy or literally anything nice, reward yourself for the hard work you’ve put in, with tangible things you can look at or experience and say ‘I have that because I did the work’. It’ll help with your sense of achievement, especially if the project is a long one.  

Join a local writer’s group for feedback. With the current Covid-19 chaos, this is probably not possible right now, but getting constructive feedback on your work from someone who hasn’t been cocooned in the project in the way you are, but who respects you as a writer and wants to help you grow, will be invaluable. It’s too easy to exist in a little isolated bubble and think you’re doing ok, when in reality you could be creating bad habits which will be difficult to break later. By these, I mean things like ‘filler words’ you don’t realise you use, or other pit-falls it’s easy to tumble into when you can’t see the wood for the trees…It’s intimidating, and it might take some courage to work up and do, but I promise it’ll help you grow. You don’t have to do what the people suggest, but it’s great to get outside opinions all the same.

Submit work to writing competitions. This will help with showing agents and publishers later down the line that you’re not only committed, but hopefully talented, and will help you to push yourself. Use the world of your novel for the setting, and get to know it by writing short stories on the competition’s theme set there.  

Read. Read the writers you admire, and read them ‘actively’ - figure out exactly what it is about ‘that’ sentence that made you shiver, and use the same techniques in your own work (don’t plagiarise, obviously, but if it was alliteration that made the sentence work so well, use it yourself! Perhaps it was the metre of the line? Great, now you know a rhythm that will drive a sentence forward or slow it down etc.)

Enjoy it. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, it’ll show in the work. Take a step back if you start floundering, and ‘interview’ yourself about why it’s not fun any more. Refer back to the sections in the notebook that helped to clarify the plot/process, and see if you’ve wandered away from them. Make yourself answer questions like: ‘What is the main reason I don’t want to do this?’ ‘What is the character’s motivation?’ ‘Should I scrap this section?’ (don’t delete it, but cut and paste it into another ‘scraps’ document, and then start afresh from the last place you were happy with. Nothing is wasted - it all goes into building the world and getting to know the characters, even if it doesn’t get explicitly told in the finished product, so don’t be afraid to do that last bit).  

Good luck!

I hope you found this helpful, and if you have any questions or things you’d like to add to this, please feel free to send me an ask here on Tumblr.

If you’re a new writer hoping to get an agent or publisher, you might also find this post on ‘talking to a published author’ helpful or interesting.

If you would like to keep up to date with my own novel’s progress, you can follow me here on Tumblr, as well as on my writing Instagram @rnpeacock

#writing #writeblr #writing process #how to write a novel #novel writing #nanowrimo #national novel writing month #writing a book #writing advice #author #authors on tumblr #how to structure a book #long post

[digitalgate02]

Hey, remember the concept I mentioned about the 02 trio getting weapons based on their secondary Digimentals for the half-dropped Hinode arc from Lady of the Castle project? (If I never mentioned it before, well now you know)

Well... I’m trying to work on it right now. Especially how each of them have an ability based on their Armor-mons. This idea came out a few years after my initial plan of upgraded forms for the Armor digimon in the same fashion of BurningFladramon and (the non-used) RapidLighdramon.

I had done Horusmon (Fauermon) and Shurimon (i can’t remember his name) first, but when i went to do Digmon and Submarimon... My ideas only were successful with one (which ended up being DrillDigmon). Submarimon’s upgraded form would’ve been the most drastic of them -- he would become a big submarine-or-ship and the kids would use it to travel through the Digital World in this adventure. But my chara design abilities from that time NEVER got a finished or even a rough sketch to work with. I also assume I had designed an upgraded form for Nefertimon and Pegasusmon, but I probably lost them... Or I’m misremembering having done Pegasusmon’s form. All I remember is doodling Nefertimon and she had a bipedal style this time, and had no actual name either. I also lost the scans from that time alas and idk where’s the sketches are.

ANYWAY, 

Since I failed on designing a big ship-like Submarimon, I later had the idea of turning the secondary Digimentals into... Weapons based on their mons. You will be surprised when I say the Lighdra-Glaive -- Daisuke’s Digimental Weapon -- was only made in 2017, while Submarimon and Shurimon-based’s  weapons ideas came in 2014!! Also, the idea wasn’t just for the 02 group (minus Daisuke, more details later) but also to the older six. I only managed to draw one for Yamato -- a gun which could shoot ice bullets and lasers based on MetalGarurumon -- but the rest was... undecided or sketched. Taichi would’ve gotten a sword based on WarGreymon, just saying.

Now, as for Daisuke... The original Hinode Version 1 & Version 2 had him become a half-human half-digimon creature, so he basically “armor evolved” with the Digimental, though during the process his color palette turned into a cold color scheme (the Yellow and Red details turned into a Greyish-Blue and Indigo/Purple) to indicate this was a supposed “Virus attribute Lighdramon” armor. (more details about Lightnimon concept here.) As I said, the Lighdra-Glaive came in June 2017 while Hinode arc was still on its hiatus. The idea of him gaining one would be featured in the EN re-written version of the arc, but Kizuna satisfied me and I decided the best was not keep working on it. The recent drabbles are indeed little pieces I re-wrote from V1 and V2, or things i really wanted to write down and hadn’t reached it in the V2. In those drabbles, Daisuke is fully human and uses this weapon to assist BurningFladramon in battles, as a combo.

After chatting this much for an intro, let’s get some old sketches on table!

March 2014 - Shurimon-based weapon which... is just Shurimon’s back shuriken. It got the Crest of Innocence/Purity/Sincerity on it, as depicted in the sketch.

March 2014 - Submarimon-based weapon, which is a kendo stick made with Submarimon’s “harpoon-nose” -- the spikes can be turn off! As illustrated in this other doodle here. It also contains the Crest of Reliability/Faith/Faithfulness/Honesty/Sincerity/whichever-translation-you-use on it, but not depicted on the concepr art.

June 2017 - Lighdramon-based weapon. It’s a Glaive! Also, this used to be its original size, I’m working on a new take on it which I will be posting soon.

Those are used in the Hinode Drabbles, by the way. Now, some unused concept art!!

Feb 2018 - (Metal)Garurumon-based weapon. While there’s just one rough sketch and color test, this was supposed to be a pair. As explained before, it only shoots Ice bullets and lasers to freeze the enemy and assist in the battles or to a successful escape.

#digitalgate02 chara design development #ok i know this is not chara design but... weaponry design?? #da02 hinode concept art

[devilrosess]

Spyro the dragon

Spyro the dragon is the main protagonists of the 1990’s to 2000’s video game series of the same name. They were initially developed by Insomniac Games (1998-2000), then Check Six Games (2002), Equinoxe in the same year, Digital Eclipse (2001 to 2003), Eurocom (2004), Amaze Entertainment (2005) and finally Toys for Bob (2018). I’m am only going to be focusing on Spyro in this particular series. Spyro in The Legend of Spyro and in Skylanders will be at some point in the future.

Like I said, Spyro is the main character of his self titled video game series “Spyro the Dragon”. Spyro has appeared in 10 games in total (11 if you count the Reignited Trilogy or 13 if you count it as three separate games) and has made cameos in the Crash Bandicoot series. He was also the former mascot for the Sony PlayStation. He is a small purple dragon with purple eyes, yellow spikes, orange wings and brown horns who lives in the homeworld of Artisans. But did you know originally his name wasn’t going to be “Spyro” and he wasn’t going to be purple?

Concept

While coming up with the character, one of the artists at Insomniac Games had an interest in fictional beasts (such as dragons). This artist was the one who came up with the concept of Spyro in the first place.

Insomniac initially came up with the idea for Spyro to be a green dragon named “Pete” however they couldn’t use the name due to possibly getting copyright claimed by Disney. So, they decided to change the name to “Pyro” (the Latin and Greek word for fire) but they thought that name was too mature for a game aimed for kids. The name was eventually altered to Spyro and they ended up sticking with it.

After Insomniac settled on the name, they had to decide what his colour pallet would be like. Now you might thinking “Didn’t they want him to be green?” That’s true, but they didn’t want him to blend in with grass. So, they eventually decided to make him purple due to the colour contrasting well with green whilst being a unique colour that wasn’t commonly used for dragons.

This is one of the earliest design sketches for Spyro.

Personality

Spyro has always been known to be four different things: Courageous, headstrong, eager and arrogant. But he also has a sense of heroism, friendliness and a fiery personality. He has little concern for his own safety and can be quite irresponsible at times, but can you blame him? He’s only a young little dragon.

Spyro can be a little curious but hardly cautious. He’s known to be quite sure of himself as well. You could even call him cocky.

Abilities

Spyro has gained a lot of abilities throughout the series but his main ones consist of charging his opponents with his horns and breathing fire. He can’t fly very well because he’s so young and he also can’t breathe a continuously long stream of fire, he can just spit fire bursts.

As Spyro gets older, he learns how to use his wings just like a shield, swim underwater, double jump, head dive and breathe streams of fire. In the later games, Spyro gains the power to breathe ice, electric and even bubbles. He also receives the additional power of breathing water. He is able to breathe wind and fly on his own but only at short distances.

Now, let’s get into his story.

Spyro the Dragon

Spyro as he appears in “Spyro the Dragon”.

In Spyro the Dragon, the main villain of the game, Gnasty Gnorc attacks the dragon realms, freezing all the dragons except for Spyro and his friend Sparx. The spell had no effect on them because they were smaller than the other dragons. The friends go across the dragon realms to free the 80 dragons from their Icey prison and recover their treasure in the process. After going through all the dragon realms (that’s including Gnasty’s realm and the former dragon junkyard) Spyro and Sparx have a final battle with Gnasty Gnorc and defeat him.

Later, Spyro remarks that in every good battle, someone needs a good adversary and that Gnasty was a worthy opponent. This then causes the dragons to become frozen again by an unseen character that’s presumed to be Gnasty Gnorc.

Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rampage!

Spyro in “Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rampage!”

In Spyro 2, Spyro and Sparx are on vacation from the dragon realms and notice a portal to Dragon Shores. They decide “Hey, we haven’t been there since we defeated Gnasty Gnorc.” and enter the portal. They are surprised to find that they’ve entered a realm called Avalar because residents of the realm: The Professor, Elora the Faun, Zoe the Fairy and Hunter the Cheetah had redirected the portal to send them there instead. They soon encounter a dictator named Ripto, who is enraged by the fact that they had brought a dragon to Avalar. There is a brief struggle that ends in Ripto escaping Summer Forest.

Spyro and Sparx (By Elora’s request) vist all the realms of Avalar and recover several Talismans, then pursue Ripto. They end up in a battle with one of Ripto’s minions, Crush which they win after he gets crushed under a pile of rocks (Ironic). Ripto escapes to Autumn Plains and Spyro and Sparx pursue him.

Spyro and Sparx eventually catch up with Ripto and have a fight against his mount, Gulp. Elora assists them by providing weapons. Ripto falls after the fight and Elora gives Spyro a place to rest.

Later, Spyro and Sparx decide to search for her and find themselves in Winter Tundra. They find out that Ripto survived and has locked Elora and the others out of the Tundra’s palace. Spyro and Sparx then have to travel through portals to recover enough orbs to defeat Ripto for good. After they’ve gathered enough, they challenge him to a duel. Spyro uses all the orbs he has collected for attacks while Ripto has his own orb to bring a mechanised version of Gulp. Spyro destroys it.

Ripto uses another orb to transform the floor into lava while creating a giant mecha-bird to defeat Spyro. Spyro fought the bird and defeated it, sending Ripto to what is assumed his end in the pool of lava.

Spyro and Sparx were then sent back to Dragon Shores to continue their vacation. It is then revealed in the epilogue of the game that Spyro visited Avalar after his vacation.

Spyro: Year of the Dragon

Spyro in “Spyro: Year of the Dragon”

In Spyro: Year of the Dragon, the dragon realms are celebrating the Year of the Dragon festival, a very important event. Every twelve years, the fairies bring dragon eggs to the dragon realms. This year, they’ve delivered 150 eggs. After the dragons sleep from exhaustion after celebrating too much, a rabbit named Bianca comes to steal the dragon eggs. The dragons wake up to find the eggs gone and witness Bianca with the last remaining egg in her hands. Spyro, Sparx and Hunter attempt to stop her but their too late when she takes the egg through a wormhole to the Forgotten Realms, the realm where the dragons used to live.

Since the dragons are too big to chase after her, Spyro and Sparx are the only ones who are small enough to go through and recover all 150 eggs. Hunter insists in coming along and goes through the wormhole with Spyro and Sparx’s help.

Bianca’s master, the Sorceress, alongside her, creates monsters to fend them off but their all obviously defeated by Spyro. Along the way, he makes four new allies: Sheila the Kangaroo, Sgt. Byrd the flying Penguin, Bentley the Yeti and Agent 9, the Professor’s monkey. When Spyro and Sparx arrive in Midnight Mountain, Bianca begins to realise just how far the Sorceress will go in order to obtain power and betrays her and joins Spyro. Spyro defeats the Sorceress but she didn’t die.

He had recovered 149 of the dragon eggs and collected 20,000 gems to fight her again in a region of the Forgotten Realms that was secret. He took control of a spaceship and defeated her, recovering the final dragon egg.

Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly

Spyro in “Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly”

Spyro, Sparx, Hunter and Bianca are having a celebration for the baby dragons that were rescued in the previous game gaining their dragonflies. Ripto comes and spreads 90 of the 151 dragonflies across the dragon realms. Spyro and Sparx track them down.

They eventually enter Ripto’s portal with the combined magic of the dragonflies. Ripto creates a shield for himself that is resistant to fire, Spyro destroys it and defeats him. Suddenly, he uses a magic spell to grow twice his size and create a flame barrier, causing Spyro’s fire breath to be utterly useless.

Spyro uses ice breath to bring down the barrier and freeze Ripto, who then uses his magic to grow even bigger and bring pieces of Crush and Gulp into his body. Spyro brings him down easily using his electric breath, defeating Ripto. Ripto then tries to curse Spyro, which doesn’t work too well.

Spyro: A Hero’s Tail

Spyro in “Spyro: A Hero’s Tail”

Spyro discovers that the dragon realms are being plunged into darkness by an evil Dragon Elder named Red. He, along with Sparx, Hunter and Sgt. Byrd team up with a new friend named Blink the Mole and track Red down, along with his alliance of Gnorcs (Gnasty Gnorc being among them.) and a new character named Ineptune.

They travel through new homeworlds and defeat Red. However, he escapes to his lab and builds an army by turning Gnorcs into robots. Spyro finally tracks him down only to see that he’s become a robot himself. Spyro defeated him and the Professor shrank him so couldn’t attack the dragon realms ever again.

Spyro: Shadow Legacy

Spyro and Sparx return to the dragon realms to find it in ruins by an evil force. They discover a Sorcerer is attempting to take control of the dragon realms using dark mirrors of each realm called the Shadow Realms. Spyro sets out to rescue everyone held captive by the Sorcerer and defeat him.

After Spyro saves the dragon realms and Avalar from the evil force, he finds Red in the Forgotten Realms and defeats him in a fight. Red then decides to change his ways and help Spyro stop the Sorcerer. Spyro makes his way up the Sorcerer’s lair and the two of them engage in a fight, which Spyro wins. He returns to the dragon realms where a parade was thrown in his honour.

Spyro: Season of Ice

This game is an alternate sequel to Year of the Dragon that’s set after Spyro defeated the Sorceress.

After Spyro saved the dragon eggs from the Sorceress, he, Hunter and Bianca decide to take a vacation. While Bianca was researching vacation spots, she lost her magic book in the Sorceress’ library, causing it to fall into the hands of the librarian, Grendor. He tried casting a spell on himself to make him super smart but read the spell wrong causing him to grow another head.

He began to use Bianca’s book to freeze all the fairies and scatter them across the Fairy Realms. Zoe alerted Spyro before she was caught herself and he along with Hunter and Bianca went to the Fairy Realms to rescue all the fairies, including Zoe.

When Spyro entered the first world, he found that Rhycons had infested the Fairy Realms and defeated them along with Grendor and freed the fairies.

Spyro 2: Season of Fire

When Spyro and Sparx returned from the Fairy Realms, Ripto returned as well for his revenge on the dragons by scattering all the fireflies all over the dragon realms. Which wouldn’t be so bad if the fireflies weren’t the source of the dragons ability to breath fire. Spyro and Sparx go to find all of the fireflies and eventually save them all, defeating Ripto once again.

Spyro: Attack of the Rhycons (Spyro: Adventure in Europe and Australia)

Ripto takes over the Professor’s laboratory and drives Spyro and Sparx out. They then travel through the realms to collect twelve hearts to open a passage back to the lab to confront Ripto. They eventually defeat him and he is banished until he meets Dr. Neo Cortex, the main villain of Crash Bandicoot.

Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy

This is a crossover game of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon.

Ripto teams up with Cortex to get rid of Spyro and Crash. They genetically modify Ripto’s minions and disguise them as their two foes, leading both main characters to begin to believe that they are fighting each other. Spyro eventually meets the real Crash at Dragon Castles although, they believe that the other is the disguise Ripto minion. They realise that they’ve been tricked and team against Ripto and Cortex.

After defeating them, Crash and Spyro thank each other for their help.

Cameos

Spyro makes cameos in the Crash Bandicoot games.

Crash Twinsanity

Spyro discovers that his treasure has been stolen by someone and traces it down, he discovers that some of Crash’s enemies are trying to take the treasure and he toasts them as revenge.

Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled

Spyro appears as one of the racers in the Spyro Circuit portion of “Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled.” He is a speed based racer in the game.

And that’s it for Spyro. And yes, I will do the character profiles of the other Spyro characters in the series along with his profiles for Legend of Spyro and Skylanders. But until then, this it for the Spyro games.

#gaming #Spyro #spyro the dragon #insomniac games #crash bandicoot #character bio

[gofancyninjaworld]

even with actual superpowers, some things are surprisingly constant

It’s not secret that I miss Murata’s streams so much.  I was looking through a Twitter feed for some references and found quite a few unexpected gems, the first of which I’m sharing here. @mgn_13 has translated so many gems I’d not previously seen.

All images are from the thread in question: https://twitter.com/_mgn_13/status/1006590956554993664  which covers part of Murata’s stream from 11 June 2018.

I couldn’t help but smile at Murata changing  hairstyle a bit to make him look more fierce.

But I completely lost it at Murata describing this upgrade as Genos’s chuunibyo phase, that phase most teenagers go through when they either have delusions of grandeur or think themselves special and not like everyone else.   So many of us have been wondering why such a radical and over-complicated design:

Of course it’s weird and different from anything else that came before.  The doctor let Genos tell him what he wanted.  And then did it.  Just imagining the instructions kills me.  I’d tried to sketch them out in stick-figure format, but I nearly died of the cringe-worthiness, don’t ask me for them.

1. Arm blades, cool.  More blades, cooler!

2. Jet Drive Arrow, awesome.  Ending up naked, not awesome. I shall furnish you with the clothes I will wear to battle tomorrow for you to make appropriate adjustments. 

3. I am tired of monsters trying to ambush me.  Instead I want to ambush them.  I would like a weapon that allows me to kill them without turning round.

4.  MORE BATTLE POWER.

The result looks like the over-the-top uebermensch that teenage boys like to imagine, only Genos really does have super powers.  Some things don’t change.  At 19, he should have grown out of it, but his social and emotional development has gotten a little... interrupted, shall we say?  The more reasonable part of Genos is bothered that he has troubled the doctor.  The less reasonable part of him is telling him to shut up and enjoy the power. 

No sympathy from me for the enabler-in-chief though. Dr Kuseno may be aghast at the reckless abomination he’s created but asking ‘what do you want’ is not an obligation to implement every damn-fool idea the boy comes up with.  Although I must admit that some of the implementations have been pretty damn awesome.

allegedly the adult in the room. not doing too well at it.

Man I MISS Murata streams. So much good stuff.  

#OPM #streaming shenanigans #Genos #can you say 'arrested development'? I can #I don't understand why I find this so funny #but this is why I love having multiple stream reports -- you never know who picks up on what #and looking back through the stream reports there are so many things that I didn't initially appreciate #plus there are things that I appreciate anew now that the manga has progressed #more as time (and laughter) allow #Dr Kuseno

[bananaofswifts]

“I just need to make a better record. I’m making a better record.” That’s what Taylor Swift said with striking calm in one of the most memorable clips from her Netflix documentary, Miss Americana, after finding out that her 2017 album, reputation, had been shut out of the 2018 Grammys’ Big Four categories.

Her next release, Lover, didn’t quite live up to Swift’s ambitions, at least on the awards front: In 2019, its only major Grammy nod was for song of the year, for the title track. But now, thanks to her record-breaking, surprise (and surprising) pandemic release, folklore, she may have made a record that’s “better” in the eyes of voters. Swift’s only album to spend its first four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, folklore pushes her songwriting into new territory, trading stadium-pop sheen for the subtle, layered production of prestige indie-rock, thanks in part to an unlikely collaborator: The National’s Aaron Dessner.

Dessner, 44, has been making music for over two decades, collaborating with everyone from close friends like Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon — with whom he co-founded the band Big Red Machine and more recently the independent label 37d03d, a partnership with Secretly Group — to Mumford & Sons and world-class orchestras. With nine co-writes and 11 production credits (some of which he shares with Jack Antonoff), folklore is Dessner’s most high-profile project yet and could well get him a producer of the year nomination. (He previously won a Grammy for best alternative music album with The National at the 2018 ceremony.)

‘’Jack and I thought this would be a record we loved but had no expectations commercially,” says Dessner. “So the fact that it’s this weird smash — of course it would be amazing to win or be nominated. But it’s not on my list of things I feel that I need to accomplish in life. I really couldn’t be more proud of folklore. And also just like, ‘What the fuck, how did this happen?’”

You’ve said the best musical experiences you’ve had have come from moments of spontaneity. How does that apply to folklore?

It’s exactly that. I feel like I would not have been able to go toe-to-toe with Taylor in the way that I did if I hadn’t done everything else that I’d ever done. To me, making songs with your friends in some basement 20 years ago or producing records for totally unknown artists is just as important as when you end up, by some weird stroke of serendipity, in a crazy collaboration with someone who is so gifted. I had really run the gantlet of so many experiences that I was in a spot where when she came, there were fireworks, musically, between us. And we had the work ethic to see it through.

Once she reached out to you, how did you prepare to work with Swift?

Well, I’ve definitely listened to all her records — I do that from time to time, just binge-listen to certain things — and I could tell she’s a savant. She’s such a performer, but so gifted as a writer. She told me upfront: “Don’t try to be anyone other than yourself,” because she was really gravitating toward the emotion in the music. She didn’t want me to try and be Max Martin or Jack Antonoff. I didn’t go obsess over “Shake It Off” or something. I had a lot of music that I’d been writing when she approached me, and I just sent a folder because she asked. Hours later, [she sent back] “Cardigan.” It was an unusual vein that we struck.

Was there any material of your own that you didn’t want to offer up just yet?

Definitely. It was more that there were some songs that are specifically one thing or another. The Big Red Machine stuff is quite far along — and actually, Taylor has been amazing [at giving feedback]. I’ve shared all of that stuff with her, and she has been really helpful.

Does that mean we will we hear her on a Big Red Machine track in some form?

[Laughs] I can’t really say, so I guess I’ll say neither yes nor no.

How does a massive pop star releasing what feels like an indie folk album allow other artists to feel less confined by genre?

Taylor has opened the door for artists to not feel pressure to have “the bop.” To make the record that she made, while running against what is programmed in radio at the highest levels of pop music — she has kind of made an anti-pop record. And to have it be one of the most, if not the most, successful commercial releases of the year, that throws the playbook out. I hope it gives other artists, especially lesser-known or more independent artists, a chance at the mainstream. Maybe radio will realize that music doesn’t have to sound as pushed as it has. Nobody was trying to design anything to be a hit. Obviously Taylor has the privilege of already having a very large and dedicated audience, but I do feel like it’s having a resonance beyond that.

Music is already moving in that direction with artists like Billie Eilish. Why did that approach appeal to Swift?

I think for people to hear what she’s capable of. That song “peace” — when she wrote that, it was just a harmonized bass and a pulse. She wrote this incredible love song to it that’s one vocal take. I definitely felt like I was exposed to a truly great artist in that moment, just to see her to carve into this sketch in a substantive way. Billie Eilish is a great point: There are people who are pushing the boundaries of what is and isn’t popular or mainstream music. To have been part of it and see it actually happen, I almost felt like, “Is it really going to come out? Is somebody going to come tell us that we’re ridiculous?”

Was there any anxiety over fan and media reactions eclipsing the work itself?

I had moments of self doubt, for sure, but I think that’s part of Taylor’s brilliance and kind-heartedness is to make me and others around her feel confident. She repeatedly would say, “There’s no hierarchy. This is as special and great as anything I’ve done before, if not greater, so don’t worry.” She has dealt with so much spotlight in her life, too much probably, so she knows better than anyone the kind of whims of the zeitgeist, so she was leading in that sense. We were on the phone when it came out, and it was a really special experience… We were just on the phone as people around the world were listening and reviews were coming in and the truth is, it went so well, that I have never thought about it again. It could have been the opposite.

In 2016, you and your brother Bryce, Justin Vernon and others launched a week-long Berlin residency called People that evolved into an online community for artists to self-publish work in real time. What’s the status of that platform now?

At some point People magazine told us that they own the word people in any media context, so we changed it to 37d03d, which is people upside down spelled with numbers and letters. We decided to start a proper record label in partnership with Secretly Group, and we put out as much music as we possibly can with the idea that — and this is very much a part of folklore — eventually there’s a large community of people feeding into the music and making it as great as it can be. [We’re] trying to create a label that really embraces that, and where decisions aren’t commercially driven. If somebody comes to us with this crazy noise record, we’re as interested in that as hit songs on some other record.

You and Swift made folklore without ever being in the same room. How do you see the pandemic changing the music industry?

I do think the way that we’ve had to embrace collaborating remotely and being open to it is a powerful thing. Everything is on pause, and everyone is listening in a different way. I’d like to believe that this is a chance for some shifts to happen.

#taylor swift #folklore #aaron dessner

[lavalampelfchild]

Lava’s Art Masterpost

Hey, all!  Welcome to my art masterpost!  I have no idea if this is a thing that is done typically for art, but oh well, I like organizing things, so here we are!  What you’ll find here is mostly Dragon Age, with a few non-DA pieces in there, and there’s a range of styles I like to use, depending on my mood.  But a lot of what you’ll see will most likely combine lineart with some other form of coloring/shading.

Feel free to browse at your leisure, and I hope anyone who stumbles upon this enjoys what they find! :D And thank you to anyone who sees this and likes, or reblogs, or even just stops by to peruse a bit!  

All that said, away we go!

Digital Portraits:

1. Portrait of Nameless Woman, 2020 - This one is just an experiment with a watercolor brush that I did.  It’s not anatomically perfect, but I enjoyed playing around with shading.

2. Sketch of Aja Amell, 2020 - This one is basically sketch practice with my Amell~  Not really the most expressive pictures, but it’s a start toward drawing her more expressively.  Full disclosure: Aja is one of those OCs of mine that I have had trouble with deciding on a definitive appearance for several pictures, and I really want to work on upping my level of consistency when drawing her.

3. Long-Haired Fenris, 2020 - Exactly what it sounds like; this was for practice drawing Fenris’s features (I love how distinct they are), but with long hair because I am weak for it.  This one was a fun piece to shade, and mixing the stylized lineart that I normally use with a greyscale shading spectrum was really enjoyable.

4. Portrait of Ilorin Lavellan, 2016 - This is an oldie.  Basically practicing expressions, and it is technically a WIP, but I’m still very happy with how the shading turned out, especially because this is actually (aside from the unfinished hair) one of the more minimal pieces I’ve done in terms of lineart  It’s still there, and it still shapes the flow of the picture in some ways, but it also ends up flowing with the shading instead of standing out next to it, which I like.  (Both styles are good, though, and I love seeing other artists try both too.)

5. Old Portrait of Aja Amell, 2016 - Much older picture I did of Aja; she... honestly looks very little like the newer one, I think, and that consistency is something I’m still working on, but this one was the first picture of Aja with that particular hairstyle I drew.  What I like about this picture is how young she looks; it fits with her image as a fresh and sheltered Circle mage who’s only about 20 years old at the time of DAO.

6. Old Portrait of Trilyn, 2016 - They very first piece of art I posted to tumblr~ It’s not exactly how I envision Trilyn anymore, but it was still very fun to draw, and helped me get a feel for drawing him in the future. 

Dynamic Movement Pictures/”Moment’s in Time”:

1. Tabris in Arl’s Estate, 2020 - TW: blood.  I am super proud of this one.  My ultimate goal is to draw all of my Warden DAO OCs, and I could not believe I’ve never drawn my Tabris, and so here she is.  This was, in large part, practicing expressions because I absolutely love art that depicts characters in motion, or capturing some kind of expression.

2. Velyn in the Rain, 2017 - This one was actually based on some art that I saw in a Teen Wolf fic!  It was an experiment with a more expressive style (and one of the first pieces I did without lineart left in the finished version) and it was a huge step out of my comfort zone.  But overall, I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

3. Jem Nocking an Arrow, 2016 - And here is the lineart version.  This was entirely an excuse to draw my DAI baby, Jem, and to do a cool archer pose because archers are my fav, and I love characters in motion.

4. Solas Teaching Trilyn Fade Magic, 2016 - This one was a painterly picture that was also (like the Velyn picture) something which I tried to keep lineart out of.  Overall, I am proud of a lot of parts of the pic, but I think I would definitely go back over it and change a few things now if I had the patience.

5. Trilyn Closeup WIP, 2016 - TW: injury, blood, mention of abuse in the author’s note.  A lot of early pictures I have are of my OC, Trilyn, and this is one of my absolute favorites.  His entire upper body is technically in the picture, but I hadn’t finished rendering it yet, so this was what I posted.  And it was an experiment with a cross-hatching style with the pencil tool for some texture, with air brush shading and a blurring tool.  It’s a style I had fun playing around with!

6. Trilyn Blood Ritual, 2016 - TW: blood, injury (the slight cut used to supply the ritual with blood).  This one was definitely a sort of “captured moment” from a backstory I gave Trilyn, and I think what I was really going for was an atmospheric piece that could fit with any potential fic I wanted to write for Trilyn.  And then it ended up being practice for extreme lighting/shading techniques, and drawing the blood and the gross mass of demon ichor (or whatever the heck that is) turned out to be highlights of making the piece for me.

Art + Text:

1. Freedom and Control, 2020 - TW: scars, but very difficult to see.  This one was ambitious for me!  It started originally just as Solas and my Tal-Vashoth OC, Saara, facing each other, because I love the dynamic I’ve built for them in my head, but then it turned into an attempt at a tarot-esque background, and just sorta grew from there... Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out, especially with how Solas and Saara themselves turned out.  The version you can actually see a larger view is here.  

2. Marianna and Delia Codex and Art, Pt. 1, 2020 - I love writing my own codex entries, first off, and I love combining art with text to create a (hopefully) seamless work.  This work was an attempt to flesh out these OCs of mine with both art (because unique facial structures are hard for me to get down, but so important regardless) and text (because writing~).  I think it turned out well overall, but there are elements of the portraits that I might at some point touch up a bit.

3. Marianna and Delia Codex and Art, Pt. 2, 2020 - Part 2, with what I refer to as a “DAI Outfit Change” because I have always loved seeing fans show their own OCs as they look in DAO, DA2, and then finally DAI.  So I absolutely wanted to jump on that bandwagon myself.  The skin tones are a little off (and I’m sorry about that!) because I was playing with the watercolor brush at that point, and it dilutes the colors I use.  Still working to figure that out, but I was very happy with the overall lineart and structures of the faces.

4. Alistair/Aja Amell Picture with a Blurb, 2017 - Ooooold, old, old, old, OLD!  I still love the art, and I’m soooo happy with how the interaction between Alistair and Aja turned out (drawing kisses is extremely difficult for me; I always end up creating a distorted weird lip-creature, instead of realistically puckered lips...).  I’m not as happy with the blurb that went with it?  At that point, I was still very much figuring out my own DAO worldstate, and the characterization for everyone, so, eh.  Take it with a grain of salt!

Unfinished Costume Designs:

1. Ancient Elvhen Armor with Dwarven Influence, 2018 - People who do costume design work are amazing and mystical beings, and I wish I could do what they do.  This was an attempt at merging the Keeper robes from DAI with a more dwarven armor aesthetic, solely because I created an ancient elvhen character, Ceda, who was taken in by the Cad’halash dwarves mentioned in the Witch Hunt dlc, and I wanted this character to have a mix of the elven style of armor and the dwarven style.  I’m overall decently happy with it, but there’s still that persistent level of self-criticism present.

2. Herald of Andraste Outfit WIP, 2016 - This was a very old picture, not one I showed around a lot, but the idea for this was entirely born of my intense interest in how fashion and outfit designs could be used to create a symbolic image for the Herald of Andraste.  In general, I love the combination of ceremonial armor with long and flowing cloth, so that was what I went for here.  I’m still actually very proud of how this came out, and headcanon something similar for my Herald in my canon DAI worldstate.

Pencil Sketches:

1. Quick Saara Sketch, 2019 - TW: saarebas mouth scars.  Exactly what it says; very quick sketch of Saara I did in a small notebook I carry around with me.  This was basically a test for myself to see if I could manage to draw Saara with the features and facial structure I envisioned for her without needing to use a lot of references.

2. Mass Effect Character Sketch; Jesse, 2018 - Similar reason for drawing this one as the above Saara sketch!  With these characters, I love sometimes the way they can turn out with the specific character creator used for them, and when I draw them, I enjoy trying to create a definitive look for them using what I get from the CC, and my own knowledge of Hooman Faces.

3. Saara Sketch, 2017 - TW: saarebas mouth scars.  A more detailed sketch of Saara than the one above, and one I definitely put more time into overall.  It’s currently the profile picture I’m using for ao3, and is the definitive go-to reference picture I use whenever imagining Saara in a fic, or for other Saara pics I make.  I am extremely proud of this picture, and feel like I should work in graphite more often.  It’s such fun, and the texture is so nice to look at.

4. Sketch of Nameless Alamarri Woman, 2017 - This was a sketch I did of what I envisioned some Alamarri tribes to look like; I used artistic depictions of Gaul tribes and hairstyles for inspiration, and have used this as a go-to reference for my version of Alamarri tribes.  Nothing super notable about this one, but I really liked the way the shape of her face turned out.

Events and Gifts:

1. Another Scar, 2020 - TW: blood, injuries, gore.  The most recent piece of art on the list, and a gift for @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold; featuring sisterly love between Rica and fem!Brosca, which was her requested prompt.  This was a tough piece for me because of the difficulty with the lighting I dealt with.  For some reason, that one particular element of it gave me so much trouble.  Overall, I’m very happy with how it turned out, though, especially the skin tones of the sisters; Brosca I always sort of like as having this greyish, more gaunt look to her, while Rica I like seeing with a darker, richer, and warmer tone to her.  

2. A Very Cousland Christmas!, 2019 - This was for a holiday exchange for a server, and I drew a friend’s Cousland (Elissa, the girl on the left) with my Cousland (Gazza, the girl on the right).  I love kid-fic, and I love kid-art, and so I decided... baby Cousland art!  Drawing kid proportions was the toughest part, I recall, and I thiiiink it turned out well, and I’m still quite proud of it overall.  Elissa’s design came entirely from my friend, but I added the holly~

3. Exchange Gift with Dis Brosca and Mabari, 2018 - This was an exchange gift for @fanfoolishness, using her lovely Dis Brosca, and was my first real attempt at backgrounds... I struggled with the coherence of the foreground and background a bit, but I’m still very proud of how it turned out, especially with the colors I had to work with.  What I also really enjoyed working with was the lighting and the expression on Dis’s face.  Backlit subjects are always fun to play around with!

4. Inktober Picture, “Deep”, 2017 - TW: scars, injury, mentions of abuse in the author’s note/attached dialogue snippets.  This was for an Inktober prompt (the only one I’ve ever done, sadly... because I am bad with deadlines...), and again features Trilyn.  Trilyn’s backstory has him a former slave in Tevinter, and a lot of the early works I do for him are sort of deep-dives into his life there.  It’s all meant to be an exploration of the things he endures, and then those moments when he overcomes it all and takes back his own autonomy and self.  This art is definitely provocative, and I can understand if not everyone likes it, but to me, I just wanted to show just what he faces (without glorifying it) before showing the moment of his own triumph.

5. Christmas Holiday Picture with my Brosca and a Friend’s Amell, 2017 - This was a piece of art drawn first by a friend of mine, @nanahuatli~  She drew the Amell, the background, the mistletoe, etc.  All I did was add my Brosca to the mix to finish the image.  It was a lot of fun to do, 1) because it was fun trying to match her style so that the picture looked cohesive, 2) because I love doing collabs with friends, and 3) because it was just such a fun thing to imagine my surly short Brosca, looking at this weird plant/fungus/thing dangling over some puckering human!  It was an absolute joy to do this collab with her!  

6. OC Kiss Week Pic of Jem and Saara, 2017 - TW: saarebas mouth scars.  A spur-of-the-moment thing meant to demonstrate just what kind of dynamic my OC, Jem, has with my other OC, Saara (both of whom are members of Leliana’s network in DAI).  This was a very quick picture (deadlines...) and was mostly just to have fun drawing these two characters interacting, and to see if I could make them look like themselves.  I think I did a decent job with it overall, especially with Jem’s kissy-face!  (Again... drawing kisses are the bane of my existence, although hands and feet take a close second.)

#lavalampelfchild's art #masterpost #dragon age #some not DA stuff

[picturebookmakers]

Johanna Schaible

In this post, Johanna talks about her incredible debut picturebook ‘Once upon a time there was and will be so much more’. In the first dPICTUS Unpublished Picturebook Showcase in 2019, this project was voted for by 23 of the 30 publishers on the jury, acquired by Lilla Piratförlaget, and then published as a co-edition in nine languages.

Visit Johanna Schaible’s website

Johanna: I will tell you about my picturebook ‘Once upon a time there was and will be so much more’. It takes us on a journey through time. The book begins in the distant past, catches up to the present halfway through, and then leads us with questions into the future.

Millions of years ago, dinosaurs lived on Earth.

One hundred years ago, a journey took a long time.

A month ago, it was still autumnn.

What will the weekend bring?

Will you have children one day?

The time is depicted in a special way. If you open the book in the middle it looks like this:

The pages of the book become smaller as we draw closer to the present and grow larger again as we move into the future.

This is one of the first dummy books I made.

Back then, it was hard to believe that this would turn into a real book one day. For a long time, I heard from the publishing world that it is very difficult to produce a book like this and it would be even harder, if not impossible, to find a publisher who would take the risk, effort and cost to produce it. It took some time, but here it is!

The book’s journey started with Bolo Klub, which was founded several years ago by the Swiss illustration duo It’s Raining Elephants. Bolo Klub supports illustrators in completing a picturebook, and provides networking opportunities with professionals from the publishing world. I had the chance to take part in the first edition from 2018–2019. We were a wonderful group of fifteen illustrators that came together once a month to push our book projects forward, and to benefit from each other’s feedback.

Photograph by E.Ettlin.

I do a lot of projects moving between art and illustration. To make a picturebook sounded very challenging to me, especially because I rarely work on narrative.

I always keep a logbook where I write about the project I‘m working on, including the inspiration and input I receive. This is the logbook from the meetings with the Bolo Klub.

From the beginning, I was attracted by books with exciting formats, and I wasn’t up for creating a regular one. I didn’t want a main character, and my starting points were thematically very open and global. My keywords, for example, were ‘night’, ‘air’ and ‘time’.

With the aim to really make progress on our projects, we spent a working weekend together. Besides the working, it was so enriching to exchange thoughts and ideas. In a creative process, we all face similar challenges.

Photograph by E.Ettlin.

I was working on two ideas: The first idea was a zoom, starting far away and coming in close to one child. The second idea was a dummy book with the topic ‘time’. Combining the two ideas was the turning point, and I had finally found the theme and concept I was looking for.

Photograph by E.Ettlin.

I often work with collage and painting for my illustrations. I also do my sketches using this technique because I want to see the atmosphere of an image and idea straight away.

To start with, I made some little sketches the size of postcards. In this case I work more roughly, and I appreciate the liveliness that inhabits these sketches. I feel comfortable working quite fast. It helps me to develop the images intuitively.

Photograph by E.Ettlin.

I made a lot of little dummy books to observe what happened while turning the pages. I had to find simple sentences that gave the timeline and structure to the book.

Alongside the development of a coherent journey through time, I had to think about the feasibility of my idea. When I did my little dummy books, they were very imprecise. It was only when I started to measure the pages and make examples of the real book size that I realised that my pages didn’t just get smaller, but their format changed completely.

This became one of the most important pages for me in the logbook: the one with the measurements of each image.

The format changes from a more common picturebook size...

... to a wide panorama format, and then back again.

To be sure about the size, it helped me to use frames that I put over my collages, to be able to change and move elements until the end.

With the Bolo Klub and my dummy book, I travelled to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2019.

Photograph by E.Ettlin.

In Bologna, some publishers told me they were interested. But I never heard from them again. One publisher seemed particularly interested, but didn’t propose me a contract at that time.

It was another call that boosted this project. I sent my dummy book to the first edition of the dPICTUS Unpublished Picturebook Showcase in 2019, and was thrilled when I heard that 23 of the 30 publishers on the jury voted independently for my project. It made me very happy because it showed me that, even if that didn’t mean that they would publish it, my book was touching them in some way.

Frankfurt Book Fair 2019 photographs by Theodore Bauthier (@b.c.theodore).

It was also through The Unpublished Picturebook Showcase that my book project found the publisher that accepted the big challenge of making it a reality. I was very lucky with my Swedish editor Erik Titusson from Lilla Piratförlaget, and Sam McCullen from dPICTUS / Picturebook Makers on the graphic design. In our collaboration, I felt a big trust in me and my work.

My creative process for this project was similar to how it very often is for me: Some pictures came easily and stayed very close to the original sketch...

But for some of the other pictures, I had to do them over and over again until they felt right to me.

With my technique of mixing painting and cutouts, I really like to develop sceneries and creating atmospheres. To show humans inhabiting these scenes was a challenge in the beginning. It became easier after I decided to paint the figures at a larger size. For some images I made the whole setting first. Then I cut out the figures and inserted them digitally.

Whenever I got stuck, it helped to go outside and take photos of the daily life around me.

This, for example, is a house in the old part of Bern, which inspired me for the following image.

To make this book was a precious experience to me. The companionship and support from the Bolo Klub was very helpful and enriching. On this journey, I’ve had the chance to meet a lot of inspiring people who shared their knowledge and offered me their help. I‘m so thankful to all of them, and especially to my closest allies and friends who support me in all of my projects.

I hope that this book will offer to people of all ages the possibility to talk about what kind of future we imagine and want to build together.

Illustrations © Johanna Schaible. Post edited by dPICTUS.

Buy this picturebook

Det var en gång och blir så mycket mer / Once upon a time there was and will be so much more

Johanna Schaible

Lilla Piratförlaget, Sweden, 2021

Billions of years ago, land took shape. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, people built some very large things. A month ago, it was still autumn. Where will you be in an hour? How will you celebrate your birthday next year? What will impress you forever? What do you wish for the future?

This book takes us on a journey through time. It begins in the distant past, catches up to the present halfway through, and then leads us with its questions into the future. Both the fleeting present and the enormity of time are depicted in a truly unique way: the pages of the book become smaller as we draw closer to the present, only to grow larger again as we move into the future.

Swedish: Lilla Piratförlaget

English: Candlewick Press (late 2021)

Italian: Orecchio Acerbo

German: Carl Hanser Verlag

Portuguese: Planeta Tangerina

Spanish: Leetra (Mexico)

Danish: Turbine

Greek: Martis

Korean: LOGpress

#switzerland

[comunidadarcsystemworks]

Exclusive interview with Arc System Works

We have had the opportunity to interview several key members of Arc System Works. Before we begin, we want to thank Arc System Works America for giving us the opportunity to have this interview.

We will divide the interview into 3 sections: "General", "Daisuke Ishiwatari" and Tosimichi Mori.

General

Q. The first question is going to be a tough one, but the community has been very vocal about it so we would really want to begin with this one. Will GGPO (Good Game Peace Out) be implemented in your next projects? If not, would you consider its implementation at some point in the future? We are not talking specifically about Guilty Gear Strive.

A. We’ve heard your passionate requests, and we’re working on a netcode that will live up to everyone’s expectations.

We’ll have more information for you later.

(Guilty Gear Strive Director: Akira Katano)

Q. Fighting games aside, do Arc System Works has plans to do more action games like Hard Corps in the future? Especially with the Guilty Gear engine. We recently saw Code Shifter as your latest brand new platform action game or your collaboration with Wayforward, which are always welcome.

A. We’d definitely like to try genres other than fighting games, such as action games.

This would include plans to use Arc System Works’ 2.5D animation style in non-fighting games, of course.

However, we don’t have any concrete plans to share at the moment.

(Producer: Takeshi Yamanaka)

Daisuke Ishiwatari:

Q. Thank you so much for taking the time for our questions. Since the announcement at EVO, we are really excited to know more about Guilty Gear Strive, and we have read all the interviews and your philoshophy about this game and its gameplay. So, what would you consider to be the lead factor for this change?

A. Thank you for your excitement about Guilty Gear Strive.

The biggest reason for changing the gameplay is to make a game that can reach the current generation of gamers.

I feel that through previous Guilty Gear titles, we have more or less perfected the Guilty Gear formula.

It may very well be possible to tighten that up and make a further refined game. But, even if we did, such a game would create a disparity between new players and veterans who are used to the game’s systems.

So, we wanted to reset the start line for everyone. But of course, this doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten our appreciation and respect for long-term fans and accomplished players.

Q. One of the main focus seems to be drawing the attention for new players and esports while adapting the HUD and the gameplay/action to everyone so it can be enjoyed by a wider audience. That´s interesting, but how will you make new players invest time in your game and wanting to improve their skills at their own pace? For example Granblue Fantasy Versus could be a good example since it has a big focus on its RPG Mode to do so in case beginners are not doing well while playing online.. Will you take a new approach this time with the Story Mode or single player content?

A. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you anything concrete at the moment.

However, the game will offer an experience of learning and discovery for both new and advanced players. Our game design is even more focused on that now, than ever.

I can’t guarantee that it will make it into the game, but we are also thinking of ways to further strengthen the community.

For example, currently most players aren’t very familiar with the top players.

But if they realized there were stars similar to Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather playing the game, wouldn’t they want to know how that person got so skilled?

We’d like to provide something to help players who aren’t too deeply into the game a way to enjoy it as a whole, like fans do with soccer or basketball.

Q. As of today, we know that you are gathering feedback regarding the main points of the new gameplay so I´ll save it for later, but as for the music, we are noticing a lot of emphasis on vocal tracks. Will this be the Guilty Gear with the biggest number of vocal tracks? will we get new versions of themes like “Holy Orders” or “Give me a break!?

A. Yes, I believe GGST will feature more vocal tracks than any prior title.

That is one of our many decisions in attempting a complete renewal.

We aren’t currently planning vocal arrangements of previous songs, however.

The only example I can think of where that went well would be Queen’s Seven Seas of Rhye.

Of course, if there were enough requests, there are songs I would love to create vocal versions of.

Q. A lot of people are requesting characters from past games like Testament or Bridget, but of course, we know that you can´t confirm any detail by the moment. However, I would like to know if we could get just a small hint about past fighters coming back to the scene.? Can we expect more original characters to be added to the game besides the cyborg samurai from the first teaser?

A. All I can say is, there will be characters from the previous series and this new character too. Please look forward to it!

Q. About the gameplay, as I said earlier, I believe that it's necessary to wait until the beta version for us to have a proper idea about it. Since I still haven´t had the chance to play the game I can just express my opinion as a spectator. I believe the overall gameplay seems interesting according to what you want to achieve but doesn´t the wall break mechanic interrupts the flow of the match a bit too much for the spectators? I feel the same with restricting combo routes, won´t it be monotonous if we ever watch the same, or really similar routes?

A. Don’t worry. The developers are creating GGST with both a casual and hard-core perspective in mind. There may be some aspects that don’t quite satisfy series veterans, but we will create new depth that will motivate them to learn something entirely new.

Also, even if the Beta Test is not well received, you will see our answers to your feedback in the game upon release.

Finally, could you share some words and thoughts to your fans in Spain?

Currently, we are steadily releasing news about GGST. However, the gameplay itself is still very much in development. Our plan is to continue to evolve the game as we receive feedback from the players. Please look forward to it.

Toshimichi Mori:

Thank you so much for giving us the chance to give an answer to our questions. We have read everything that could lead to a future Blazblue or Persona 5 Arena so I´ll try to make interesting questions for everyone.

Q. First of all, I would like to start with Blazblue Alternative Dark War. Will it be possible for you to share some more details about it? Last time I heard from the game I was taking notes at the London Comic Con.  If you can´t share any details, could you give us a hint about when could we know more about the game? Also, I love the sketches that you publish from time to time!

A. Thank you very much.

However, I can’t say much about Dark War right now--only that I, personally, am working so that you guys can play the game as soon as possible. I believe that as long as the players are supporting the project, it will move forward. So please keep talking about it.

Q. Talking about the London Comic Con from last year, I remember that I asked about Alpha 01 and you said that this year we should have news, but this year I want to add something else to the same question. Besides Alpha 01, when could we know something about Gamma 03 as well?

A. I’m really glad that for whatever reason, so many people like Alpha.

I understand some are really looking forward to her making an appearance, but it will be some time… So please wait a little longer.

Q. As of June of 2018 you said in an interview with Gamerevolution that you are saving ideas for future Blazblue and future Persona Arena Projects. Also, in an interview with Gearnuke (January 2020) you said that you would like that your next game will be 2.5D and that the next Blazblue will have new system mechanics. Taking all of this into account, could you please give us further details about what would you like to achieve with a new Persona Arena (which people are really vocal about it) or Blazblue project?

A. I appreciate your enthusiasm. However, I can’t really discuss anything at this moment. Please understand.

Q. Moving on to Blazblue Cross Tag Battle and talking about the same interview from Gearnuke, we read that companies are not approaching you to add their characters in the game. Have you considered “small” companies like Nihon Falcom or Vanillware to see beloved characters like Adol Christin from the YS series or Gwendolyn from a cult classic like Odin Sphere? I feel that they are characters that most of us known or we have heard of but they still didn´t have the chance to shine outside of their games.

A. I get a lot of requests for characters in BBTAG. Honestly, there’s lots of characters I would like to include, myself.

I won’t say it’s impossible for the characters you mentioned to join the cast, but we don’t have any plans for this at the moment. Regardless, I would really like to do some form of collaboration in the future.

Q. Sticking with Blazblue Cross Tag Battle, will we see more characters from RWBY or Senran Kagura? Is there a chance to see Persona 5 characters in the game (unless a Persona 5 Arena is in the works of course) or Kyoko and Misako from River City Girls?

A. We’ve just released Season 2, so we don’t have any definitive plans for the next characters yet.

Right now, we’re still thinking about the next step and listening to everyone’s requests as we work with the current version.

Going back to Blazblue main story, now that the phase C came to an end, and with Rachel´s words being “I shall find you, I promise” at the end of Blazblue Central Fiction… Will we get a follow up to this arc, or it will be a completely new arc? Also, are you planning to do another anime or manga?

A. We are preparing for the start of a new story… Sadly, I can’t guarantee when it will happen. I think that when that new chapter begins, you will understand what Rachel meant.

Finally, could you share some words and thoughts to your fans in Spain?

Thank you for loving the BlazBlue series.

I can feel that love you have, so I hope I can meet all of you in person someday. Thank you for your continued support.

#Blazblue #Guilty Gear Strive #GGST #Ishiwatari #Toshimichi Mori #Arc System Works #Interview #Alpha 01 #BBCF #Blazblue Cross Tag Battle #BBTAG