#i still have no idea how do people draw using a lot of pretty colors how | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vetyr · 2 months

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hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

#answers to asks #illustration #art advice #art help #drawing #digital art

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time-woods · 7 months

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Hello there!

I love your use of patterned and textured brushes like these ones! The little dots and blending of colors is so pretty!

Do you have any tips for how to incorporate these brushes into drawings? Or how to get it to look good? (Tried so hard) (still didn't look like That™) (no idea what I'm doing)

thank you !

and for tips lets see- whenever i use brushes like that (ill use the rake like one as an example)) i tend to do those curved shapes especially when a color is bordering another but i usually dont just leave it at the brush ! i go back over it and define standout gaps and lines- sometimes i cover up the majority of the og brush stroke with other small swoops- it involves a lot of layering. i use the textured brush as a starting point and then i push it further with other brushes ! also with the dots- it wasnt a pattern brush i just adore adding small stuff by hand ^^

moral of the story- layers ! lots of layering, like how youd do in a physical painting, and also dont be to precious with the placement ! sometimes having that randomness and chaos is really freeing ! (thats why i love working with randomized hue jitter brushes and liners with random dithering ! ! it adds that excitement and unpredictability to my art process !))

i hope this helps ! and also im gonna be making a list of the brushes i like/ use on a regular basis cause i know a couple people have been asking !))

#asks

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redr0sewrites · 2 months

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Hi! I'd like to make a request if you're still open for then. It's more like two, actually. I got my nails done the other day, and I've been excited to show everyone since it's the first time I've ever done this! I was wondering if I could get one for the hazbin Hotel men and how they would react to them. For the second one I was hoping for the same characters being with a chubby reader?

Specifically, I'm curious about husk, vox and angel dust but I also wouldn't mind the rest like Adam and alastor. Just no Valentino obvi

(Romantic pls! Preferably sfw for both requests)

Thank you so much!!!

YESSSSS OFC OFC!!!! i made the pt2 w chubby!reader hcs in a separate post and linked it ♥️

🥀Cw: none, mostly fluff

🥀Pairing(s): Husk, Vox, Angel Dust, Lucifer

Husk

husk is 100% a supportive boyfriend and he admires you whenever you get your nails done

while he may not be super up to date on modern technology, he will TOTALLY take super aesthetic nail pics for you and do his best to make sure you and your nails look fabulous

if its your first time getting your nails done and your a bit nervous, husk has no qualms about accompanying you. toxic masculinity be damned, he'll sit beside you the whole time and chat with you and your nail technician about whatever

he gives great advice when it comes to colors and styles, and if you ever came to him for advice on what nails you should wear, be prepared for an entire formal slideshow on what colors he thinks would look best on you

husk loves when your nails tap against hard surfaces, the soft clicking is very soothing to him. his ears always twitch towards the sound of your fingers drumming against the bartop counter when your sitting with him while he works

he loves how your nails feel combing through his fur, and will absolutely PURR when you scratch his ears with them but will deny it to no end if you tease him about it

Vox

vox is pretty perceptive, and notices almost immediately that you changed your nails. he'll ask to see them, and will definitely praise you because of how stylish they look. vox knows you have good taste, your dating him after all!!

vox would probably show off your nails to others, and would offer for velvette to post about them on her sinstagram. or, he'll just post about you on his own account. maybe he'll take a photo of you and him with your nails in view, "casually" mentioning how lovely they look and drawing viewers attention to your lovely nails. he loves it when you both receive attention, and he wants people to know he sees you as a masterpiece

vox knows getting your nails done can take some time, and while he can't always be there in person, he'll make sure to call you or text you to make the wait more bearable. expect a lot of questions about when you'll be home, or how much longer the appointment will take

vox would probably start buffering and short circuit if he saw that your nails matched his color scheme. he LOVES the idea of you both matching through your nails, and might subtly suggest that you get blue and pink nails next time

Angel Dust

angel dust is practically your hype man! the second you tell him you're going to get your nails done he offers to accompany you, and will get a set that matches with yours!!! he loves holding your hand and admiring the way your nails match, and will randomly ask to hold your hand for the entire time you have your new nails

i'd say that angel has definitely gotten his nails done before and is probably pretty used to it, so he'll definitely calm any nerves you have. he looovessss showing off your guys' matching nails and will take a bunch of cute aesthetic nail pics with you!!!!

considering he's a celebrity, he would LOVE it if you got nails inspired by him!!!!

you two would totally have spa dates where you would go out and have full selfcare days, and get your nails done together. imagine just chilling with angel in a nail salon, relaxing as your nail technician works on your hands while your lover rambles aimlessly beside you. its a very affectionate and soft date that the two of you enjoy, and you end up going out with angel to get your nails done quite frequently

Lucifer

lucifer would 100% offer to accompany you if you were getting your nails done!!! he would love just getting to sit with you and chat while he watched you get your nails done, and would probably ask a lot of questions

once your nails are officially done, he showers you in compliments!!! he adores everything from the colors to the design, simply because you chose it

if you got super long nails or acrylics, lucifer would absolutely offer to do simple tasks for you. fumbling with a necklace clasp because your nails are too long? here, let him do it for you! can't pick up a tiny item? he practically teleports to your side! struggling to type?? here, just tell him what to say and he'll type every word for you!!!!

lucifer loves kissing your hands, and he loves doing it even more once you start getting your nails done. he'll press a kiss to each nail, traveling up to kiss your knuckles and then all the way up your arm to kiss your face

IVE NEVER GOTTEN MY NAILS DONE SO I TRIED TO BE AS ACCURATE AS POSSIBLE!!!!! APOLOGIES FOR ANY MISTAKES 😭 this was also my first time writing for husk + angel dust, which is actually shockers considering they're literally two of my favs

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dreamii-krybaby · 2 months

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Hi, please let’s take appreciation for the smallest details that Murder Drones have

I love how despite having the same idea of somewhat decorating their lockers, they still show a bit of their different personalities

Nori has color in it, a lot of emotion too, with the exclamation marks and the little angry face, clearly not wanting people to mind in her business with her “STAY OUT!” message. The colors and the fact she has hearts and a dolphin (?) shows she does like cutesy stuff but enjoys edgy things thanks to the skull (?) drawing. Her hand writing is in bold and in all caps but is a rather round lettering

She is giving a bit of “that one girls who did the most decorated and messy-in-a-pretty-way school notes” vibes

Yeva on the other hand surprisingly does show a bit personality but not as much as Nori, its all in black, no color. Her lettering is much more sharper and even fancier in a way, and the words aren’t 100% in bold, her name isn’t in all caps, except for her “DO NOT DISTURB!!” Message. Which tbh is so silly she opted to words things like that. Has slightly poorly drawn stars and flowers doodles, a cutesy vibe in comparison to her sharp lettering.

I originally thought that her “do not disturb!!” message was misspelled, to show that she struggles writing in english, but then I realized it was written properly, its just the words where faded out and worded in a peculiar way. She makes it sounds that she uses the locker to sleep in it and she doesn’t want ppl to disturb her (if these are indeed lockers and not rooms). Or maybe she does struggle a lil when wording in English, who knows?

Its also interesting how the dolphin drawing, the stars and flower doodles are all from the outside world, from nature. Yeva and Nori probably know and have seen these things somewhere but I doubt they saw it in person or saw it daily while they lived on the labs/camps, its kinda cute and sad

And again is a bit sweet that despite their awful and dire conditions they still tried to have fun in some way.

But it’s so tragic at the same time bc they where probably women with interesting and cool personalities with aspirations but where forced in a horrible situation and livehood.

And then, whatever kinds of horrors it definitely changed them permanently as people, and not in a good way.

#murder drones

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lvrtwn · 5 months

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venus if she was awesome

speedpaint and more thoughts under the cut

venus has always been one of my favorite characters, though i feel her design is pretty underwhelming with a lot of wasted potential. this is kind of a redesign, kind of my own personal headcannon, and kind of how i imagined venus in my head as a kid.

this is supposed to be my version of g1 venus, more similar in facial features and keeping the straight hair. i absolutely love her new hair and face in g3 but im hesitant to call the new outfit an improvement. both g1s outfit and g3s outfit are bad in their own ways. i dont want it to seem like im shitting on the new design. again i think the face sculpts, hair, and body types of g3 are so awesome. its great to see more diversity being included in the designs. i just decided to go with g1 venuses look because thats the venus i grew up with

i definitely took some inspiration from g3s outfit for this design. i like the idea of it but the execution is just not great, not to say her original outfit is any better. i feel like out of all of tge original monsters she was the one with the most waisted potential. i love her personality and the abilities she has but the way she was styled has always bothered me.

in the movies shes described as “eco-punk” which is SUCH a cool style to go with a plant monster character. i just feel like the “punk” in “eco-punk” was never really represented in her outfits. i personally love punk music and clothing; ive been an active member in my local diy scene for many years and i love seeing all the outfits people put together.

i thought i would give her an outfit that shows off a couple of my personal favorite staples of punk style. big chunky leather boots with lots of straps and buckles. kept the shoe mouths from the original because they cool as hell. lots of leather, studs, spikes. i gave her denim cutoff shorts inspired by her gen 3 outfit, same with the torn black top. punk style has a big focus on comfort, practicality, and making things yourself. i imagine she cut a pair of old pants into shorts, roughly cut her “undead kennedys”band shirt tank into a crop top, and probably repurposed the remaining fabric. i also totally didnt draw this whole thing as an excuse to use that pun. i included asymmetrical leg accessories, with one fishnet stocking and one torn up sock. i also feel like she repurposed these, continuing to wear her old torn up socks instead of just throwing them out. i gave her a big chunky studded belt matching one of her cuffs with a recycling symbol belt buckle. i feel like it communicates an important aspect of her personality just at a glance, plus i just love big belt buckles. lastly i added piercings because 1. theyre cool and 2. i for some reason remembered her having an eyebrow piercing but i guess she never had one.

i mostly kept her body and hair the same. changed her ears and hair color slightly but thats just personal preference. i decided to make the vines on her body look more like tattoos instead of being 3d. i imagine she can make them grow into real vines, but when shes not using her powers theyre just flat against her skin. gave her a facial expression that made her look a little more unhinged. she might only do things for the good of the earth but she can still mind control people at will.

i wish i leaned a little bit more into the plant theming but im overall still super happy with how this came out. maybe ill made more monster high redesigns in the future

#monster high #monster high gen 1 #monster high redesign #venus mcflytrap

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sciencebecameouraddiction · 2 months

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my lucifer headcanons

note: these are just my own head canons. things i’ve noticed, how i write lucifer, what plays into why i write luce the way i do… etc. purely my own opinion.

- i think michael was very fond of his brother

- when the time came though to listen to dad and fulfill his duty or be a brother to lucifer michael chose duty

- the betrayal is still a sore spot for lucifer

- during lucifer’s “youth” he was curious, always dreaming up incredible creations… it was why he was dads favorite.

- he made the star fish, “because the sea deserves its own stars!” and he also made the duck. the ducks first iteration was quite a bit larger… lucifer and god compromised on a smaller duck. (more like god bribed lucifer.)

- he watched adam be made…. so he was always fond of him and lilith… until he fell in love with lilith…

- he didn’t realize it was love

- but michael knew and michael was scared. so he would draw lucifer away from the garden every chance he got

- lucifer was very naive when he was cast down to hell. he knew so much, he had been alive for so long, but there was so much life experience he didn’t have.

- the first few years in hell were horrible…

- he had hope at first

- maybe it all wouldn’t be so bad

- it was really bad. like really bad. the people who came down to hell were unspeakable devils

- (this is based off a fic i read and i can’t find it, if this rings any bells pls let me know the fic name) but lucifer is continuously appalled and distraught by the atrocities committed in his name.

- it’s one of the reasons he so powerful. he has the angelic power but also the power from those who worship him and make sacrifices for him

he really hates it. a lot. makes him feel no better than the worse overlord (cough alastor cough)

- charlie has no idea and she’ll never know if he can help it

- lucifer smells like apples and vanilla musk, a hint of cinnamon and something floral or citrusy.

- the floral or citrus changes depending on his mood

- he has a huge library. he actually pops up to earth with Asmodeous sometimes and takes books.

- he saved the whole Library of Alexandria’s books before it burned down

- he’s great friends with all the sins

- arguably closest with Beelzebub and Asmodeous

- he loves claw machines. the lights, the sounds, the prize winning???? he’s so fucking happy

- he actually wears glasses to read. he doesn’t need them but he says they make him look smarter.

- is actually a pretty good leader, is not nearly as forgiving as charlie is, but he’s not inherently cruel

- his third favorite color is pink

- his first and second are yellow and red, obviously

- he has expensive ass, maximalist taste.

- he doesn’t use tech because he knows what vox does to said tech.

- he’s always wanted a dog

- he’s very touchy. shows love physically. is only this way if he likes you though

- he has nightmares almost every night

- coffee addict

- because after not sleeping he wakes up looking like death warmed over

- and that’s if he didn’t forget to eat the past few days except for random snacks and didn’t do a 48 hour blitz of staying up working on ducks or the bit of kingdom shit he does.

- he has a handful of servants who he trusts and they are the only one in the house. there’s no team. nothing like that. he keeps it very close

- this was after someone who was a servant tried to throw an angelic dagger at his head because really they wanted to kill him and thought working for him would get them close enough.

- he homeschooled charlie. he knows a lot of stuff and even knew the guy who created calculus!

#hazbin hotel imagine #hazbin hotel #lucifer fluff #lucifer head canons #hazbin lucifer #lucifer magne #lucifer hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel lucifer #lucifer headcanons #lucifer morningstar #hazbin hotel headcanon

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roxtron · 3 months

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Day 5: Rabbit, Reclaim

AGJGDFJF FINALLY IT'S DAY 5 SO I CAN POST THIS

For some reason everytime i draw him he looks so young because i'm accidentally overcorrecting since i'm used to drawing older characters. So unfortunately he looks way younger than i meant him to lol, whoops.

But wait there's more- AHAHAHA

While I did initially plan this for GGY week I eventually got the idea to use this as an excuse to draw other GGY designs, soo..

(Not sure why tumblr formatted it that way with 1 of them big but it doesn't matter lol)

I've been wanting to do this for a while, I put the tags of each person next to their design but ofc I'm still gonna tag them in the post itself so you can see their art for yourself if you haven't already. But I enjoyed each of these in their own ways so if you don't mind I think I'm gonna type a bit of text next to them..

@chipistrate This was one of the first I drew out of these, the design was pretty fun to draw but sorry if I messed up a few details, it was a bit difficult lol. The mask and goggles are really fun to draw and they make for a cool design, along with all the glowing blue. (and yes, I tried to subtly include the heelies lol)

@lunzi0 This was the first fursuit one I did lol. I adore the little stars in the design, they personalize it so well and make it really unique. I wanna try this design again since I feel like the other ones show my improvement a bit better, but I hope you can appreciate the effort I put in on my first attempt <3

@carouselrabbit This one was really fun to draw, I absolutely love the eye shape/lashes, it stands out and I always love drawing eyes with a bit of eyeliner lol, the daycare theme legwarmers is a cool nod to the balloon boy arcade machine being connected to them, and was just a fun addition in general lol, I like the style of legwarmers what can I say, fnaf changed my fashion sense a bit. also the subtle paraells to freddy's design is a nice way to connect a bit to gregory himself.

@puhpandas I can't remember if I talked about this design last time I drew it but, overall I'm really happy with how this came out, it's such an indicator of improvement since I started drawing this and I'm glad I was able to draw it better than last time lol. All the patchwork and similarities to Vanny's suit work really well, and the rabbit you chose to base it off of was a good fit, the colors make it a bit more difficult to shade for but i like detail lol, hope you like it too :)

@dykevanny I knew I wanted to do this since I started but I wasn't sure if I'd have time, and I'm glad I did! I hope you don't mind I combined aspects from the first design I saw and the second one you replied to my ask with, I liked the big purple sleeves lol. (I just realized after doing all the shading I forgot to include the oil splatter on his jacket, sorry!) It was definitely a bit difficult due to the head shape being so different but.. fluffy. i love drawing fluff. And the glowing swirl on the goggles, the shape of the ears, I love a lot about this design. :D

I have a hard time with writing compliments but I wanted to get some of those thoughts out, some of the things I like about these designs apply to multiple lol. I adore every one of these designs but I find it hard to put into words what I enjoy about them, hope the original creators are happy with these. <3

I also kept the ggys without as much lighting effects on a separate file, I felt like I should add them since they're a bit brighter lol, makes them look different.

Okay now that I've gotten all that- Sorry this post is so long! I didn't think it'd end up taking up so much space lol. Buut.. working on this drawing and thinking about it and potential context behind it gave me an au idea for it, but I'll put it under the cut since I understand most people probably won't care and just wanna see the drawings lol.

Idk if I'm confident enough to write for it but I'll give a bit of a summary.. I'll keep it under the cut for people who aren't interested and just wanna see the art though lol.

After the main events of SB and Ruin, now that the mimic's been set free, Cassie's taken control of by what's left of Vanny, using her as a new host. But with Cassie being the only human left alive down there, after being reawakened, Dr. Rabbit has nowhere left to go but back to his old host.

Vanessa, Freddy, and Gregory hadn't gone back to the Pizzaplex after ruin, but they were trying to figure out a plan to get Cassie back safely. One night after Freddy and Gregory disappear, Vanessa leaves to go find them. As dangerous as the pizzaplex is, it's her best guess for where they might've gone. She doesn't want to think about what could've happened to them, in denial for the worst case scenario. She tries to keep herself calm by telling herself they probably just left to go back for Cassie, maybe they didn't want her stopping them.. but deep down she knows it can't be that simple. She knows something's off, even if she's not ready to admit it.

When returning to the pizzaplex, she brought along her own V.A.N.N.I. mask, though unlike the one Cassie used, it was clear of the mimic's influence. After all, she was going to need some way to travel through potential blocked routes.

By the time she found Gregory, she'd still been wearing the mask, seeing him down the end of a dark hallway. He looked confused, afraid, his mind was a wreck of conflicting emotions. She started rushing towards him, happy to see him okay, until he finally spoke.

"You need to get out of here."

She stepped back, taking off the mask, only to be faced with the worst case scenario.

It was a wreck, covered in stains and tears, but it was still recognizable. He was wearing that old suit again.

As he waved, she could see Freddy's claws peeking out from the doorway, as the two stepped closer towards her.

So, she did what he told her to do, and started running. She could hear a faint voice coming from the mask, and put it back on before finding somewhere she could hide.

It was his voice again, telling her which way to go.

I guess that was the dramatic way to summarize the main idea behind it, lol. Basically Gregory and Dr. Rabbit work the way Sun and Moon work in Ruin, whichever one is in control in the real world, the other is left behind in the AR world. Or at least that's my interpretation of how they worked, considering Sun was always in mask-on scenes and moon was mask-off. I'm not too sure where the plot might go from there, and maybe I'll consider writing for it, I dunno. I've never wrote fanfic before because I get deadly afraid of writing them out of character lol, but maybe?? I have ideas for scenes and premise and stuff but I don't know if I have the confidence to write it.

But anyway! That was just more of a fun side-idea I came up with while working on this, if you read this far thanks, hope you enjoyed :)

here's some silly little lineless doodles as a reward for making it to the end hehe

now that's what I call an art dump

@ggyweek2024

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works-of-heart · 6 days

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hiiiiii ❤️ I love your art but i wanted to ask if you use AI or not? It’s getting harder to find who the real artists are and who keeps faking it I’d love to see how you start your drawing process and wips!

Hello Anon and thank you for the ask!

I understand the concern of not knowing whether any piece uses AI, but I assure you, none of my art work uses any form of AI. I use Clip Studio Paint to do all of my artwork and everything is sketched, inked, and colored by hand. I have shared many of my WIPs with a few friends of mine, but I'll share them with everyone now, as to put any suspicions to rest! =D

These are wip and sketches, so please don't mind the messy process I have lol! At some point I was thinking of streaming my process, so people can watch me work, if they are at all interested. I'm still working on setting it all up.

Below are my WIP for some of my popular Elucien art!

The Elucien kiss, this was just putting down some shading before I worked on the lighting and coloring over the sketch.

My 'anime' style lucien. I had just put down flats and brief shading on his skin. I used the CSP background of a sunset here, adjusting it later and adding some glow.

My Lucien in Illyrian leathers! I was trying out different brushes and mood painting. A lot of this was attempting some monochromatic base painting before adding colors on top.

The sketch and painting of my Elucien garden. I had the HARDEST time trying to get Elain's head to gently touch Lucien's!

I painted the colors down, and started to get into the flow of the tone I wanted, and bigger shapes of Elain's hair. Like AI, hands are the BANE of my existence! I need a lot more study and anatomy practice. Perhaps I can post some of that here too! (I'm just always embarassed of the messy looks and weirdness of the process)

The base colors for my Elucien mother's day painting! This one turned out so pretty, I LOVED How Elain's hair came out in the end, I was pretty shocked! The sky looked sunny too!

Lucien and his wet shirt! This was the first time I've ever tried to paint a wet shirt effect before. I had no idea what I was doing, and had to try and find many different references.

These are the sketches I had done for Lucien and Elain's Final Fantasy pictures I made. Again, I need more anatomy practice, but doing these were so much fun! I listened to Final Fantasy music too to really get me in the mood. ^-^

And this is Elain of that series, in her flat colors!

There ya have it Anon! Here are just some of the WIPs I could find from my painting/drawing process. A lot of it is messy, chaotic, and just ugly looking at the start, but as they say "trust the process!" I certainly hope this helps ease any thoughts or suspicions. I understand its hard to find good work out there that is done with legitimacy, but all my work has hours of blood sweat and tears in them. =D

#elucien #elucien art #my art #sketches and wips #wip #art #illustration #acotar art #anti AI

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moibakadesu · 9 months

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Haruka’s victim of his “murder” was he himself (The suicide theory)

This is a theory that I had since t1 there have been even more points for me to work with (I just never had time/peace of mind to do so), so let’s get into it, shall we?

First of all, as should be obvious from the title, there is a cw for suicide and also one for child abuse and neglect, as well as dead animals because we can’t talk about Haruka without going into these topics.

So what we are going to talk about today is:

Haruka’s victim of his “murder” was he himself

You might wonder now: But how is he walking around in Milgram then? We are looking at a magical song prison that bends the fabric of reality, I don’t think being a sort of purgatory is that much out of the question. I am not one to think that ALL of our current prisoners are dead, but for some it seems like an option. Note Yuno asking so pointedly in her t2 VD “Am I really still alive?” which seemed like a big hint. And also (MILGRAM NOVEL 2 SPOILER) in the second novel there is a part where literally falls the statement of “of course there are people who are already dead, it would be more strange if we wouldn’t have these”. As well as there being a suicide case.

And even if we would not go into that direction, we would still have the option of a failed suicide attempt which resulted in a temporary stopped heart = on paper you can be declared dead. With Milgram’s very loose definition of “being responsible for the loss of a human life” this seems very much like it could qualify as well.

So what gave me the idea that this could be the case for Haruka? The first thing that made my interest perk up was this screen here from Undercover:

In these shots with the silhouettes from the prisoners we presumably have a location where their murder happened or is heavily connected to it. And in some cases we even have the victims present in the shots.

What differentiates the prisoners from their victims is that all prisoner silhouettes have this gray hatching on them while their victims are a solid black color (it’s a bit unclear with Kazui, because he and Hinako are pretty small in his scene).

So with that in mind what falls to attention in Haruka’s shot? Yes, he is a solid black.

And that sprung the idea of: what if Haruka is the victim?

Well, he is, in more sense than one, but we are only concentrating on his “murder” for now.

Let’s now go through his first MV Weakness with this in mind, because it is already ripe with a lot of possible suicidal imagery. We won’t go over his first VD, because … well, there are simply no real hints in that one yet.

Weakness analysis

Right away at 0:08 we start with a scene transition of Haruka sinking into water. As you are probably all aware water is a big recurring theme with him, it draws itself through his MVs as well as being present in image material and merchandise related to him. Prior to ending up in Milgram he was also living in the city Niigata, which is literally called “the city of water”. So we can assume that it is of pretty big significance to his character.

The overall imagery of drowning and suffocating also appears repeatedly with him, so my assumptions of how he might have taken his life are either by, well, drowning or by hanging himself (due to imagery we will later get to in AKAA).

At 0:41 we have Haruka pushing his younger self into a “scribble-puddle”, leading us to another transition of Haruka once again sinking into the watery depths.

I think this is both a representation of Haruka’s loathing and jealousy of his younger self which still was somewhat loved by his mother until his disabilities became too noticeable to be ignored as well as an actual stand-in for killing yourself.

At this point let’s talk a little bit about the little girl that is assumed to be Haruka’s victim, shall we?

Well, in a broad sense we can say: yes, she is his victim. But the twist is this, recently I saw a theory that made a big amount of sense to me, especially taken in account with the suicide theory. Basically, I think the little girl never existed in reality. She was just a figment of Haruka's imagination, a sort of “Imaginary friend”, his idealized version of what “Haruka” should have been. We know from his t2 interrogation questions that his mother always wanted a girl instead of a boy, going so far as to picking the name beforehand and not changing it even after she knew she was expecting a boy.

I could even imagine that his mother might have tried to raise him as a girl up to a certain age, her terrible overall parenting surely gives me the impression that she would do something that twisted.

So Haruka’s delusion of “his perfect loveable self” might have intermingled with himself taking his life. Because something that always threw me off was that in the end of AKAA when we get the split second of him strangling the girl it is clearly a grown up Haruka putting his hands on her neck. But in Weakness they are around the same age apparently. Why is this? Well, of course the “perfect little girl his mother wanted” would stay a little girl forever in his mind.

So he is fully convinced that he killed that girl, in his mind she was real after all.

This might be completely off the mark, but even if it is, I still could imagine Haruka taking his life after having committed the murder of the girl. Going over his second VD again personally I am leaning more towards the option that the girl was his little sister, with how much attention he puts on it having been a murder out of jealousy.

But the lyrics going along with him pushing the girl in Weakness could also allude to the possibility of that “imaginary girl” theory.

And right here at 1:20 down in the water we go again, directly after the scene above.

And at 2:05 we are at the well known stone smashing scene. The action in the screen is not the main point in this case though, here we have the first appearance of the lyrics of:

Haruka usually doesn’t consider the abuse received by his mother as bad, any attention received from her is good attention in his eyes, so he wouldn’t see himself as a victim for that, right?

So what could it imply?

Maybe becoming your own victim?

Because a lot more importantly, these lyrics make another reappearance right away. When?

When Haruka strangles his younger self. (Right after another “falling in water” scene at that.)

And at the end we literally have Haruka kneeling over his dead self, admitting that “it was me”.

It is also important to note that this is the only instance in the MV where he is not waking up in his bed again.

So that is all already plenty to go from, isn’t it? But don’t worry, there will be plenty more. (Or do worry, my heart cries daily for poor Haruka.)

To go chronologically let us look at his second VD:

Metamorphosis of the Weak

This will be quick, we only have to take a look at the very end here where Haruka comes up with his suicide threat. It’s his first instinct after threatening to kill Es and becoming aware again that he can’t do that. He is making that statement with astounding ease, almost as if … he went through with it before. He knows he is capable of doing it, so he is certain and confident of himself.

On that note, I am like 99,9% certain that he won’t be successful with whatever attempt he might be starting, there will be an intervention or a reason why it’s not possible of some sort. It will most likely go against Milgram’s purpose of judging these prisoners, so it won’t be allowed that somebody escapes proper judgment by putting an end to themselves. (MILGRAM NOVEL 2 SPOILERS: Jackalope in the novel also makes a point of this, saying that the prisoners there are disposable only after they have been judged.)

But I wrote a whole post about all the reason I am certain they won't kill him off in the middle of the trials, if you want feel free to read up on that as well!

So without further ado let us go to Haruka’s second MV:

All knowing and all Agony analysis

We start at 0:12 with Haruka in his solitary confinement, the room getting flooded with water.

Here we are again with the theme of him getting submerged in water.

And the next scene of him submerged in water right here at 0:35 in the mirror (btw. I love the direction of this MV, the blurred writing appearing in the mirror like it is getting drifted ashore by the water being one of the parts of this).

Now here at 1:29 we have a very interesting scene.

Sadly AKAA is riddled with a very spotty translation of the lyrics that doesn’t convey the meaning a lot of times or even leaves out some things.

This part here is the perfect example, the more fitting translation here would be: “if with the push of one button I could be reborn”

The translation exchanges the reborn with reset which doesn’t really carry the same meaning in this context, being reborn is something that you get after dying. I don’t think this is a coincidence at all. Also important detail here is that we have the frames with the butterfly specimens on the wall. The butterfly is a symbol of death and rebirth as well. This goes well with the name of Haruka’s second VD, because “metamorphosis” is the term for the transformation that a butterfly undergoes in the cocoon.

And here another important part that gets lost in translation:

In Japanese it would more correctly translate to “I don't want to die, I don’t want to die”.

Because, yes, I do think that Haruka committed suicide. Do I think that he did it because he wanted to die? No, that was not the main objective for him. In my opinion it was either, like before mentioned, to be reborn so that he can be a more loveable self in the next life or it was the last final desperate cry for attention from his mother after even killing the target of his jealousy didn't give the desired results.

It probably also ties in with his situation in Milgram, he does not want to die, to get wiped out, but his death is once again the only means to an end that he can see in this situation, in this case forcing an innocent vote for Muu with his life as the bargaining chip. (And well, we all know how well that gamble turned out for him ...)

And then at 2:09 we have the scene of Haruka standing on the chair.

You know what people often stand on chairs for? Hanging themselves. Doesn’t help that the barred up window in the back sort of alludes to the rope of a noose the way one of the bars is placed directly behind of him.

And here once more, with the infamous “dreaMu” line.

As I mentioned before, I suspect his pre-Milgram suicide was by drowning, but these images could very well allude to his threat spoken in the prison to secure Muu’s innocent vote. I personally wonder how Haruka could even be aware of this option to take his own life, because I can hardly imagine him having knowledge about this with his “sheltered” lifestyle, but who knows.

Good luck attempting that in the prison though, as far as I am aware there are no fixtures there that would allow for it, and we are talking about a person that can’t even tie his own shoes, let alone tie a noose that would hold up his whole body weight.

Here we also have another very bad translation choice, and I’m not talking about the “dreaMu”. No, the problem is that they just didn’t include the whole second part of that line which would be “and spread my wings wide”, perfectly going along with Haruka spreading his arms like wings.

As if to take flight. This could be calling back to the butterfly symbolism as well as jumping, “taking flight”, from the chair …

And at 3:00 we reach another part of the MV where Haruka gets submerged in fluid. But this time it’s not water.

We have seen this fluid before in the MV, notably when the preserved animals started “melting”.

Preservation is the important word here, because this fluid is most likely formaldehyde (or formalin), used to preserve dead bodies. Fun fact, this is technically not the first time we see it, it might be present in Weakness as well.

This bottle here right at the beginning looks a lot like bottles that get used to store it. It is also a clear fluid before it comes into contact with what gets preserved.

As to why Haruka has knowledge about this sort of thing is, that I could imagine that his mother had to do with animal specimen preservation, either as a hobby or for work, so he is familiar with the function of it. On that note, he might even have started killing animals to bring his mother more bodies for her hobby/work and to be praised for it.

So we are closing the MV with Haruka sitting and swaying in his “formaldehyde tank”, the very substance in which dead things are preserved, repeating the lines of wanting to be reborn to be the favorite next time, in his next life basically.

(Oh my sweet boy, you don’t have to try so hard, you are already my favorite.)

And this is it, my theory that Haruka is literally a dead boy walking in this prison.

My heart bleeds for him, because for him it’s absolutely impossible to get any sort of happy end at the finale of Milgram and I think he would have deserved the world. Just a family that would have supported and understood him properly, a way more normal life, how his biggest wish is.

#milgram #haruka sakurai #sakurai haruka #milgram theory #Moi rambles on for hours #I am rotating Haruka in my head daily

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tothebestofmyabilities · 3 months

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@seemoreseymoursbay day 3! OC day

So in the episode 'Bad Tina' Zeke mentions that his dads girlfriend just had a baby, assuming that the dads gf he talks about in early seasons is Cheryl his step mom and that the father of that baby is Zekes dad we can also assume that Zeke has a very young half sibling. And I did go ahead and assume all those things so this is Zekes baby sister Cherish (Cherry for short).

Used the prompt wonder wharf

Im gonna talk some more about her under the cut bc im sure that will devolve into infodumping zeke lore/headcanons and i dont want anyone to get stuck scrolling past a wall of text

Interestingly she's the only oc i have that's part of a different piece of media rather than one of my own projects.

She's a spunky little toddler for sure she's always got tons of energy, she's extremely confident and fearless constantly running off when she sees something that excites her or to ask strangers questions. She has a big sweet tooth but also loves spicy foods, off the top of my head I don't think its been discussed in canon where Zeke is from originally but recently I've been thinking of him and his bio mom as being from louisiana (projection on my part my mom is from louisiana and bc I like Zeke as a chef and the food there is soo good) I love the idea that his mom taught him to cook the local dishes and that he makes them for Cherry. She dresses in a chaotic mix of her own love of bright, clashing rainbow colors and dingey hand-me-downs from Zekes childhood and from their other cousins. I definitely think Zeke has adhd and Cherry does as well.

I tend to draw her/think of her around age 2 1/2- 3 (so when zeke is 16ish) but in canon time she'd still be a newborn. I love the idea of Zeke with a young sibling he's portrayed in the show as being super caring, protective of and loyal to the people be cares about, and good with younger kids all of which read as big brother qualities to me and he's also mentioned wanting siblings hes closer too. (He mentioned having a 44 year old brother in Presto Tina-o but also has said his bio mom was pregnant with him at her prom which is probably just a continuity error with his throway lines but taken at face value makes his dad out to be a gross old creep which is my personal headcanon idk if there's anyone out there who are big fans of Zeke's dad and step mom but my headcanons do not paint them in a nice light so beware of that)

Based on pretty much everything Zeke has ever said about his family I get the impression that the adults in his life are pretty neglectful and irresponsible and definitely not super present (he rarely ever speaks about his dad I hc him having a job that keeps him away from the family most of the time probably something like trucking and Zeke has mentioned Cheryl being an alcoholic I also hc her as much younger than the dad maybe she's a bartender? I definitely see her having a nightlife kind of job also for reference picture her as a redhead with blue eyes and a lot of tattoos that's where cherry gets her eyes and freckles)

I believe with Cherry a lot of parenting responsibilities would be placed on Zeke and while i think he has qualities that are really well suited to that the parentification of an older sibling is not ok and would negatively impact him, I like the idea of him applying for a job at Bob's Burgers bc he needs a more stable way to provide financially than doing odd jobs around town and not only getting a job but also getting a support system and adults who care about him and his sister and their wellbeing. I think Bob would take Zeke under his wing and help him make himself and his education a priority (the belchers helping out with Cherry when they can so he can focus more on school and extra curriculars) and help him get into a culinary school after graduation. Linda would fall completely in love with her (we know how much she loves babies) and basically treat Cherry like she's her own grandbaby. They all babysit her when needed but Louise is her favorite babysitter and maybe person also she really looks up to Louise and likes to imitate her fashion style and the way she speaks, Louise would pretend that this annoys her but not so secretly finds it adorable.

Anyways clearly i could go on and on but ill just cut myself off there hope y'all like her!

#my art #bobs burgers #bobs burgers fanart #fanart #zeke bobs burgers #bobs burgers oc #oc #seemoreseymoursweek #smsw #artists on tumblr #the picture of Zeke's family painted by all his random throwaway lines is endlessly fascinating to me #this probably means nothing to anyone else but zeke is so shawn hunter from boy meets world coded to me #oops was editing this in my drafts and accidentally pressed post instead of save its not actually march 6th for me for two more minutes #was gonna wait to post until morning but ok whatever its here now i guess

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baskeigh-ball · 5 months

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Ignoring the fact that ibis had the ai paint feature a couple years before this whole ai fiasco, after seeing your post, I decided to try it out to see if it really held up. I already knew what you said made no sense, as even stuff like ai painting requires heavy human input that isn't just someone typing a prompt in a thing and looking through thousands of images and somehow still calling it 'art'. Really, it's just some weird advanced bucket.

The ibis ai paint... really sucks. I'm pretty sure it hasn't even been touched since it was added. No matter what I did, I got random colours and whatever colours I had put there looked like it were from a filter, not to mention how my lineart bled everywhere like it was blurred out.

Ibis isn't problematic for adding that feature as not only was it added ages ago, but it was also just a gimmick only added because a few more popular paid programs added them, like Clip Studio Paint. I highly doubt even the company took it seriously considering how poorly built it is. This is actually the one time I'm glad some feature in an app sucks so much.

Another reason why ibis isn't problematic by the mere feature alone is that, when you look at the artists making content during the time of that update, it was received with humour. It was something fun to try, but ultimately dismissed for actual artwork, as nobody would use it to fully paint their works. Nowadays we see something slapped with the words 'ai' and think that it's instantly bad due to the latest issues with it and big corperations/ certain production companies but it isn't. It's just a lot of people abusing what was previously some fun gimmick, which it can still be, and for certain apps, still is. Nobody throws pitchforks at character ai, after all.

You can tell just by the size of this that I'm procrastinating on something. Ima go and let this rot away in your askbox now lol

You really thought this would fade away in my ask box, mwahahaha /j

I wanna start off by saying thank you for holding me accountable, I will admit that I got buzzworded pretty hard in this situation lmao

This information came as a surprise to me-- I was seeing posts pop up within the past week complaining about the ai feature on ibis, so I assumed it was recent. As it turns out, after reading your ask, I discovered that I got a few wires crossed! Because yes, the auto paint feature I referred to in my post has been around for years now, and was never taken seriously anyways

So that was my bad (and yea ur right it's completely unusable, lmao)

But as it turns out, the feature that people have been complaining about DID come out recently. It was called the AI Example feature, I think the idea was that you make a simple drawing and the AI adds 99% of the detail and color, which I've seen a bunch of other programs do.

...and then it was immediately removed due to some pretty major backlash, which, duh

^ This is the only evidence I can find of the 11.2.0 update that included the AI feature on the actual site; their update history stops at 11.1.0. But there's also the news page about the removal of the update, so it's not like they're trying to pretend it never happened.

So tl;dr, I jumped on the hate train a little too quickly and never did enough research to figure out what the actual update was, and that it's been removed by now anyway (which I couldn't have known until today, ofc, but i did kinda post that thing about ibis today so it's still a pretty major oopsie)

I think I can say with confidence now that I agree, ibis paint isn't problematic to use-- they made a mistake with this update, but they actually listened to their users and removed it LITERALLY the next day. So, thanks for letting me know! I'll also edit my last post to prevent any misinformation, just in case people make the same mistake I did :]

#its a big relief that i dont have to learn how to use an entirely new art program anyway #so this ask came as a pleasant surprise #asks open #ibispaintx #now i just gotta hope i didnt get anything else wrong about the update

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maniculum · 2 months

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Bestiaryposting Results: Dikebael

This animal's name is, admittedly, a bit of a "Tirion upon Túna (upon Rye)" situation in that I did not process that there was anything unusual about the name until, shortly after the entry went up, it got a "heh. Dick-ball" reply. (And they weren't alone; at least one of the art posts that's gone up has acknowledged the unfortunate name.) It probably doesn't help that this entry references the animal's testicles.

I can't even go, "well, it's not pronounced like that," because by the orthographical rules of the conlang I used to generate these names, it would be pronounced /dɪ·kɛ·bæ·ɛl/, so the start still pretty much sounds like "dick". I'd say I'll be more careful about that in future, but I scheduled all of these ahead of time and I'm not sure it's worth digging through the queue, so we'll just have to see.

Anyway, for anyone who's not sure what this whole "bestiaryposting" thing is, you can find an explanation and previous posts here: https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting. The entry that people are working from this time is here:

(Also, I just want to remind anyone reading that you're free to join in -- this is not a closed thing, just check out the "maniculum bestiaryposting" tag and sort by latest to see what the current beast is. Felt I should say that since we've had the same group of people for a while and I don't want anyone seeing the same set of usernames each time and thinking this is an exclusive club.)

Anyway, art below the cut in roughly chronological order.

@sweetlyfez (link to post here), acknowledging the lack of physical description in the entry, has opted to just have fun with it and put together this strange chimerical creature. I think the flat little horns on top of its snout are really interesting -- the linked post describes them as functioning like a stone circle to make sure it has the right date for its annual announcements. I have no idea if that would work at all, but it seems like it fits the general logic of the bestiary, and I like it.

@silverhart-makes-art (link to post here) has an interesting explanation in the linked post about how they decided to combine features of various desert-dwelling animals with the basic body plan of a peccary (which is apparently the same animal I know as a "javelina" -- I learn a lot looking stuff up while I write these posts). They then acknowledge that, without the context of all the things they're working in here, it kind of just looks like they've drawn a very large warthog. It's a very good hog, though. Something neat that you might miss if you're just looking at the drawing without the context of the post, for instance, is that it has the same fat-storing tail as a fat-tailed sheep. For more little bonuses like that, check out the linked post.

@cheapsweets (link to post here) has given us a whole herd of critters here. They've also hooked onto the "desert" thing due to the lack of physical description, collected traits from real-world animals that make them successful in a desert biome, and combined them into a new creature. They make me think of jackals, which aren't mentioned in the linked post, and also make me think of donkeys, which (kind of) are. Let's all take a moment to note the baby hiding behind a pile of rocks to the right, watching a smaller animal of some sort. I think it's cute.

CheapSweets also wonders about the significance of March 25th, and I have to say so do I. It's not explained in the text. The symbolism bit does say they call the same number of times during the day and night to represent the devil wanting to make day and night the same, which... what?

@pomrania (link to post here) clarifies that this is a grayscale rendering and that the animal would actually be a sort of dusty tan in a color version. They also went the direction of "this animal lives in the desert, so let's focus on desert adaptations." So we've got the split hooves and nostrils that can close to keep out sand. I particularly like the overhanging lip; it adds a certain charm, I think.

@coolest-capybara (link to post here) has decided that this is an excellent excuse to draw an elephant, since we're short on specific description beyond them living in Africa and being able to make loud noises. As a bonus, this means that the young Dikebael can be conveniently hidden behind the mother's large ears. The other aspects of this illustration relate to Coolest-Capybara having a pretty solid theory as to "why March 25th" -- apparently that's the Feast of the Annunciation, which of course the medieval author would have known. So here we have the Archelephant Gabriel trumpeting at Mary. (Actually it seems like the baby is doing the trumpeting, and it looks adorable doing it.) The linked post describes the medieval artworks that are being referenced in the illustration, so I recommend checking that out.

Anyway, time to check the Aberdeen Bestiary...

... well, we can't, actually. The Aberdeen Bestiary is missing a few folios, and this is on one of those. I got the text from MS Bodley 764, since I have a print translation of that one and it's fairly similar. For the illumination, we're going to go to the digitized Ashmole Bestiary, which is even more similar but I don't have a translation of it.

So this is the onager or wild ass.

Interestingly, it looks pretty much identical to the image of the tame ass on the same page, but to be fair, I don't think I'd be able to distinguish between an onager and a donkey with any reliability. Makes one wonder why they have separate illustrations, though.

And yeah, I have no additional explanation for why... any of the stuff in the entry.

#maniculum bestiaryposting #dikebael

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zankydraws · 5 months

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You got any Wekiddy headcannons? Especially for MJ?

idk if these count as hcs or not but I might have some!

MJ 182: - he's a shapeshifting alien. idk what his true form would be yet but I want to draw it someday, I'd go with some sort of anthro reptile/shark mix probably - a bit of an asshole, likes to cause problems on purpose (his main goal is pissing off El Cool P) - loves pop-punk (bruh MJ makes me wish there was an actual pop-punk version of Incredibox where he's the main character..) - he thinks Xenomorph is a hottie.. (dfkgjhdfks) - I like to think he's a good artist, specifically good at spray painting (and he uses his talent to destroy public property or El Cool P's belongings) - definitely the most rebellious guy in the group - hates to dress up - can and will bite people (mostly Cool P)

El Cool P: - huge ego. absolutely massive - probably commits crimes (loves arson) - idk there's something wrong with him - would do good stuff for people (like giving money to charity) just to make himself feel better and make people love him more - uses his good looks and charm to his advantage - if he wants something, he WILL get it - probably has tons of merch with his own stupid face on it (he owns an El Cool Shirt and an El Cool Plushie for sure) - owns like millions of suits (and matching bucket hats) - argues with MJ all the time - a terrible driver (don't get into a car with him) (how did he even get a driving license?)

KC Glow: - precious baby boy, an absolute angel - looooong sleeves - does the excited flappy hand thing a lot - can actually glow in the dark, somehow - has freckles! - you could probably pick him up and carry him around and he would be chill about it

ASAP Bee: - looks like a cinnamon roll but could kill you - loves bees, they are his best buddies - probably stores bees in his fanny pack - if you hurt/kill a bee, he will beat the shit out of you - seriously don't mess with him and his bee friends - loves bee memes, puns and everything bee related - owns a machine gun (this one is ridiclous but some people call him a machine gun guy and it made me think that it would be funny if he actually owned a gun. so don't mess with his bees unless you want a bullet in your butt) - absolutely loves honey, he's obsessed with it, always carries a bottle/jar of honey around

Big Duke: - looks like a cinnamon roll and is a cinnamon roll - a very chill and nice guy - always ready to help! - I like to think he's a little chubby - short king

Swingy: - works out a lot, he's very fit and pretty strong - I talked about this some time ago but he gives me the 80's fitness instructor vibes so he can probably teach people how to work out properly and dance - kinda stupid but he's very nice! :D - loves food and eats all the time - likes his hair a lot and doesn't want anyone touching it - generally likes to look pretty

Blue GT: - kind of a bitch - has heterochromia (I drew him with different eye colors once and loved the idea a lot lol) - he's sooo tired of hearing MJ and Cool P argue ("just kill each other already") - he just wants to be left alone - wears turtlenecks and rings - has to look fabulous at all times - loves coffee

Memphis: - doesn't want to get in trouble but somehow always ends up getting in trouble because of MJ or Cool P (because they are assholes) (Mephis still likes to spend time with his buddies tho, even if it doesn't always end up being good for him) - his hair is extremely floofy and soft, it's unbelievable - he seems a little shy to me..

and that's all I guess.. I don't really have any headcanons for the other dudes, but I might come up with something someday

#zankyanswers #sorry it took me a while to respond

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comradekatara · 4 months

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i am very curious about your thoughts on various utena/atla character parallels… every once in a while i see you offhandedly compare like.. korrasami and utenanthy and i’m like HOLD ON this is so true! if you have any further ideas about that i would LOVE to hear them. i honestly don’t know how big the audience is for rgu/atla analysis but i am definitely part of that audience. 😭

yesss i can't believe you're literally the first person to ask me this lately i've been making rgu references on like, every single post i'm shameless!!!!! over the summer i even wrote (like 95% of) an essay comparing sokka and nanami (tldr; they are meat) and i have yet to revisit it (bc i'm scared tbh) but i will post is eventually that is a PROMISE (for an audience of 5 people). also before we go any further my utena blog is @saionjeans and we have fun there. also, i have some utena/atla crossover art here and here, so check that out if you haven't already. the rest of this post will be scattered thoughts because my nanami-sokka essay will be doing a lot of the in-depth analytical work and i don't need to rehash that all now. but also, because i have never not once in my life heard of brevity, i did write a bunch of mini essays anyway, because of course i did.

korrasami and utenanthy: love and abuse

i compared utenanthy to korrasami a couple times, most notably in this post where i talk about how meaningful their relationship is despite being (arguably) underdeveloped, and then in the tags i still have to acknowledge that utena and anthy nonetheless did it better 17 years prior. but i do think that there is so much to be said for utena-korra and anthy-asami as two young women who are both set up to be "special" but in a way that denies and restricts them from their own humanity, cloistering them away from the outside world and making them more vulnerable to abuse. i talked pretty recently about how asami's abuse is really shrugged under the carpet in a way that pisses me off if i think about it for too long. rgu does such an incredible job of gradually exposing that abuse and its effects on society, not as a deviation from the norm (of the nuclear family, of the romance, of the school, etc.) but in fact a common symptom of it. lok does not critique the nuclear family in any meaningful way despite setting up so many different areas through which such a critique could be facilitated (made worse by the fact that atla sets such a fantastic precedent). but anyway, enough about lok (and how she disappoints me).

2. miki & kozue and katara & sokka: siblings and memory

in my sokka-nanami essay i talk about how various characters can be read to embody various analogues, but how my focus in that essay is primarily to draw a parallel between sokka and nanami by using the framework for gender/patriarchal logic rgu establishes. however, i also talk about how azula can be read as a nanami (or even an anthy) figure, as well as how katara and sokka can be read as miki and kozue (katara = miki and sokka = kozue, obviously) (and note that kozue and nanami are significant foils/mirrors too). i mean, they even have a similar light blue (to signify naïveté, innocence, childlike wonder) versus dark blue (to signify cynicism, jadedness, resigned subsumption into harmful norms) color scheme going on. the Special sibling and the afterthought. (although before going forward i do want to be clear that i am in no way alluding to any incestuous undertones wrt katara and sokka, and i would even argue that the allusions to incestuous desire between miki and kozue are more complex and nuanced than simply reducing it to mere perversion. but that's beyond the scope of this ask lol)

i know that some people might bristle at my comparing katara to miki (baby misogynist, little freak) but miki really exemplifies the trope of the "sunlit garden" in the same way that katara exemplifies that trope in atla. miki isn't the narrator of course (akio is), but the central motif of desire staked to an illusory formative memory since lost that defines a character's motivations and self-becoming is first properly introduced (not including the utena meeting dios intro) and defined through his obsession. in the same way, we are introduced to the world of atla through katara's formative memories, her desire that motivates her self-becoming also being an illusory formative memory, as well as a tale she longs to replicate ("the four nations living together in harmony"). katara, like miki, is defined by her naïveté and childlike innocence, her somewhat reductive desire to be noble and heroic, and her need to flatten everything into a clear-cut narrative wherein she is always its heroine. like miki, she resents her sibling for being transformed into a more cynical version of themselves in accordance with society's pressures (in kozue's case, it's the inescapability of patriarchy, whereas in sokka's case, it's... a lot of things), and longs for a time when they were "truly happy" and playing together (playing piano, playing in the snow, you get it).

both kozue and sokka heavily subscribe to patriarchal logic and comport and reduce themselves in accordance with the dictums of a world they consider truly inescapable. kozue seeks power within her limited frame, whereas sokka only seeks power insofar as it allows him to assume his very narrow role of protector, but they both assume those limitations to be ontological and fixed in a way that does not allow them to see past it. however, the lack of empathy both miki and katara refuse to attempt in understanding their worldviews, in no way making an effort to broach that misunderstanding instead of simply letting the chasm between them fester, nonetheless implicates them equally. after all, they too both adhere to their own limited worldviews, only in their worldviews they are fundamentally special and thus beyond reproach. sokka and kozue are both integral aspects of katara and miki's sunlit gardens, and their idealized return to a picturesque nostalgia involves a transformation (or regression) of sokka and kozue into their more innocent former selves. and sokka and kozue are in turn obsessed with katara and miki, the central figure around which their identity and actions revolve.

through this framework, aang thus becomes katara's anthy (aangthy, hehe), as the embodiment of katara's hopeful/nostalgic ideal of heroism, companionship, and the idealized promise of a distant irretrievable past. like anthy with kozue, aang "replaces" katara's longing for the softer, more innocent version of her brother with aang's friendship. like miki with anthy, katara possesses romantic feelings for aang despite his functioning as a replacement for sokka before he became a shell of his former self (or kozue before she became... sexually active). this is because katara, like miki, idealizes the patriarchal narratives that dictate that all significant relationships be either romantic or familial (or both). she wholeheartedly subscribes to this notion, hence why she attempts to subsume everyone who can meaningfully fit into her narrative framework as either a lover (aang, haru, jet, zuko for all of 2 seconds) or a pseudo family member (aunt wu, hama, pakku, toph, etc etc.), replicating those dynamics as many times as she needs to to make them fit within her two dimensional tapestry. and crucially, coming face to face with yon rha subverts that, because she recognizes the messy humanity spilling forth from the neat boxes she puts people in, and must thus contend with her own role in her narrative. of course miki, being a side character and not the narrator, certainly not the hero, does not get this luxury. and he must find a way to grow up anyway.

3. akio and ozai: patriarchy

there's something truly incredible about how both akio and ozai manage to inflict psychological harm upon every single character in their respective shows, even if they never interact with those characters directly. their reach is vast and spindly; it cannot be overestimated. and yet, ozai has only reigned for about six years. akio is only acting chairman of ohtori academy. they are not patriarchy itself, but merely its signifier. and obviously their modes of embodying patriarchy differ in many respects: a school is not a nation (despite the similarities), and a father is not a brother (despite akio being father-like). ozai is defeated by by being stripped of his technology of violence, whereas akio is not "defeated" in a literal sense (although i suppose anthy driving a car through his ghost and exploding him into a cloud of roses does make quite the statement), anthy merely leaves. and yet, in both instances, they are both forced to succumb to their own limited ideology regarding what constitutes power. if ozai lacks firepower, he lacks control over his subjects and the right to sovereignty. if akio's control is challenged, if people realize that they can just leave, that the ends of his world are entirely arbitrary, he no longer has the power to abuse and exploit and use others for his own ends.

the metonymic signification of patriarchy figured through both ozai and akio in dual ways further emphasizes their respective roles. ozai is both king and father, akio is both (acting) chairman and (acting) father. patriarchy dictates every aspect of [a patriarchal] society: from interpersonal dynamics to the nuclear family to the school to the state to the world. what makes both akio and ozai so brilliant in this regard is the fact that their influence is reflected in all these facets. ozai abuses every member of his family individually; controls them as a system; inflicts his (family's) propaganda onto the fn education system, rewriting history with (almost) no one to disprove him; inflicts his imperialist agenda both within the fire nation (ruining local economies through industrialization, forcing citizens to conform to restrictive roles, inflicting violence through occupation) and beyond it; he refers to the world as "my world," as if he is its creator, its owner, or its god. and in many ways, he is. akio similarly abuses everyone interpersonally (most notably anthy, touga, and utena); subsumes utena into his nuclear family system so that she cannot leave; uses the academy as a site of control in which adolescents are forced to comply with socially codified norms and thus made more vulnerable to the influence of adult authority figures (especially those who emphasize their individuality or inherent specialness when compared with the rest of the student body); operates ohtori as a sort of nation wherein patriotism is reified through the use of uniforms, affiliations, sociopolitical hierarchies, and an acting government (the student council); and defines himself as the creator/owner/god of his world. to be end of the world. to embody not an apocalypse, but a cage.

ozai and akio both fashion themselves the entire world, but it also makes them more vulnerable to resistance, to any mode of critique that points out the obvious: no, you're just one person, and the logic you use to dominate others is deeply, noticeably flawed. it's a logic that they exploit but that in turns exploits them, as they have so deeply internalized it that they can no longer immunize themselves against any kind of resistance. ozai claims that there is no room for an air nomad in his world, which is why aang defeating ozai through the pacifist values of his people and not through his greater power (which would nonetheless be subscribing to ozai's logic, and thus letting him win ideologically if not physically) is so crucial in shattering ozai's paradigm. just as utena, as someone who refuses to conform to the strict, arbitrary, and violently enforced norms of patriarchy, can so thoroughly disrupt akio's control by resisting him. just as anthy can by leaving. akio remains in his cozy little coffin, exerting meaningless control to uphold the hollow puppet of his ego.

people sometimes joke about how long it takes for zuko to recognize that the burning off of half his face was "cruel" and "wrong," but it's not that zuko didn't find it painful, it's not that zuko didn't fear his father, it's not that zuko idolized his father beyond reproach. he questioned his cruelty, in fact he did so constantly. he simply saw no other way to live. he had no conception of a world beyond ozai's defined limits, had no choice but to believe ozai's dogma and loathe himself for not sufficiently adhering to it. similarly, people often ask "if anthy could leave all along, then why didn't she?" because she, too, was trapped in a coffin of her own self-loathing. to leave an abuser is not as simple as simply stepping beyond the threshold and never looking back. first, you must locate the threshold. then, you must find the courage to look beyond it. i briefly touched on azula being an anthy figure before. well, i think that she is. just because she has yet to see beyond the threshold does not mean she does not find her limits. and yes, its not triumphant, and yes, her facade that masks her pain and fear is shattered, but ultimately, that breakdown is a good thing for her. because that's her first step to freedom.

4. the sunlit garden as mythmaking events

i talk previously in this post about the motif of "the sunlit garden" in rgu vs what i like to call "a mythmaking event" in atla, and i do want to elaborate on that slightly. i provided a link to a post on my utena blog going into what the sunlit garden "is" for each principal character, and atla has a similar mode of communicating these nostalgic desires and idealizations that motivate self-becoming, largely through flashbacks. for aang, it is quite obvious, as his memories of a before and after are (temporally, although not psychologically) fragmented by an entire century. that disconnect severs the two versions of himself quite neatly. those memories with gyatso and the other air nomads (as well as with child bumi, and with the mysterious kuzon) are his idealized past, his "sunlit garden," whereas the storm is his mythmaking event, the point in his life where his choices collide with his telos. there is no going back.

katara and sokka have a similar sunlit garden, their snowball fight being the last truly happy memory they have before the black snow falls and their childhood innocence is severed from them forever. kya's sacrifice and murder is katara's mythmaking event as she then chooses to assume the mantle of her mother who took her place, decides to become the greatest waterbender possible to compensate for surviving the genocide, and chooses to be a hero so that the collective memory and sacrifices of her people will not be in vain. like utena, she witnesses pain and suffering at a very young aged and is moved to become a hero so as to mitigate that suffering, even if her own formative tragedy can never be rectified. also like utena, she idealizes a seemingly utopian past wherein violence was more covert and thus presented itself as more ideal (the time of princes vs the time of harmony). her naïveté and persistent idealism are both her downfall and her greatest virtue. she refuses to accept the true state of the world to the point of blindness, but it is also that refusal to accept it that allows her to force the world into a kinder shape.

as for sokka, his mother's death was also a formative trauma, but his true mythmaking event is when hakoda leaves for war with all the other men of his tribe. hakoda tells him that "being a man is knowing where you're needed the most, and right now, that's here, protecting your sister." it's not a rose crest ring, but it may as well be. from that moment onward, sokka officially comports his identity into being his sister's protector, which is how he thus defines his manhood. and of course, being his sister's protector means being a martyr, because the precedent for "protecting katara" that has already been established is, well, dying for her. like aang being the avatar and the last airbender and katara being the last southern waterbender, sokka is thus defined by his necessity (ie, usefulness to others) as well as his isolation – not only the "last warrior/man" of the swt, but also via his own process of depersonalization and self-dehumanization as he attempts to fully embody his role as an eventual martyr.

zuko's mythmaking event is, of course, branded onto his face. in fact, zuko essentially assumes both katara and sokka's mythmaking events by first being irrevocably altered by his mother's sacrifice, and then being all the more transformed by his father's decree as he attempts to dictate what kind of man zuko needs to be. his "sunlit garden" is also shown to us in flashes: memories of a (literal!) sunlit garden, of turtleducks, of his mother's gentle guidance, of happier times on ember island, on his father's hand resting on his shoulder with pride instead of malice. it is unclear just how truthful these nostalgic memories are. obviously, his family was never actually happy. ozai had always been exerting control over them, even if his violence was once more obscured. we never see azula's sunlit garden, for instance (although i'd argue that she and zuko possess the same mythmaking events), and i cannot help but wonder whether it's because, like touga, she never actually had one.

finally, some honorable mentions must go to the following: toph, whose sunlit garden is also her mythmaking event, as she learns from badgermoles how to hone her gift and reject the rigid societal impositions that seek to limit, repress, and control her. hama, who never attempts to return to her sunlit garden in the swt with kanna, despite her freedom as established in her mythmaking event of teaching herself to bloodbend; she knows that she is irrevocably altered, and thus she can never go home again. appa, whose sunlit garden, of playing with the other bison at the southern air temple, occurs in conjunction with his mythmaking event of meeting aang and becoming the avatar's animal companion.

all of these events are depicted through flashbacks wherein the consecutive shots between flashback and present day mirror the character who is having the memory in the past and present, overlaying their younger face onto their current face with identical framing. i'm too lazy to compile a bunch of screenshots here, and i couldn't find the post i'd seen previously that had done so, but if you're as familiar with atla as i am, then you already know exactly what i'm talking about. this device is so effective particularly because it exercises restraint. every flashback in atla is crucial because it signifies either a sunlit garden or a mythmaking event that motivates the character its focalizing in the present day. atla is economical with its flashbacks, but not withholding. like with rgu, flashbacks in atla are used with a specificity of purpose, and illustrate their points in clear, precise ways. just because atla is not as overtly metatextual with its central themes of narrativization, nostalgia, idealization, bias, and storytelling, does not mean it is not present, and in fact, overt. ranging from katara's role as narrator to the fire nation propaganda aang attempts to correct in school, the use of memory and illusion is crucial in illustrating how atla functions as a narrative about heroism, legacy, and challenging dominant myths through preserving cultural memory under an imperialist regime.

5. final thoughts

obviously, i could go on forever. there is simply no limit to my ability to unpack and dissect these two shows (hence, my sideblogs dedicated to doing so). i haven't even talked about zuko as an analogue to saionji with regard to their latent homosexuality, misogyny, violence, and struggle to conform to a patriarchal ideal. and i barely touch on katara as an analogue to utena with regard to their naïveté, heroism, myopia, persistence, and somewhat misguided desire for justice (through her terms specifically), although like kozue and nanami as mirrors wrt sokka, her traits that i describe when comparing her to miki also map onto utena in many ways – except of course, utena, unlike miki, is also the "hero," and thus has the same destabilizing revelation regarding the banality of evil that katara undergoes in "the southern raiders." moreover, i only discuss one central motif in utena, because i think the sunlit garden is the trope that maps best onto the thematic work atla is doing, but i'm sure that there are many more frameworks i could compare. and yet, i only have so much time, and only so much space in which to ramble. so hopefully, for now, this suffices. however, if there any specific areas in which you would like me to elaborate, you know that i shall always be happy to do so.

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