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hybbart · 10 months

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hihelo, raau related things

i really like how you draw and write stuff with hybrid stuff in mind, especially avians, and was wondering if you could infodump a bit? stuff like instincts and little things like sounds they make stuff

sorry if this is too vague, i dont really have any specific questions, im just curious about it all :D

oh actually i do have one, where do you usually learn all this stuff from?

Thank you! I'll try to answer a few things

As far as major ones I don't think it's much all that differently than the general fanon you find in fics, the only real difference is that since I'm drawing, I have to figure out what it actually would look like/go with a more visual option. (For example a lot of people make blazeborn, or at least tango, purr, and that's not something you can depict in a silent, still image easily.) The only other difference is that raau is set on a single, modern world and so ones like blazeborn aren't from the nether or void and these species have a linear history that impacts the world's development.

Avians:

Avians make all sorts of birb noises when theyre emotional of course, and they need preening. Maybe pre apocalypse they were picky about what to do with their feathers, but in the apocalypse they could be a potential resource so at least Jimym and Grian save them.

The main difference is I prefer to interpret things like feather-gifts and nests as familial things. A lot of these behaviours are based on bird behaviours but I like to imagine they don't just... act like birds. These are their culture and traditions not JUST instincts.

So, like, it's instinctive and better for their body if they sleep in a nest rather than a bed, but that nest replaces beds and- while their partner usually is the other person sleeping in that bed, it's more of a big like... sleepover space for everyone in their flock, not a romantic thing. It doesn't really say anything about their relationship other than they're comfortable sleeping around them, in their nest which is their safe place. Nests I also designed based on enclosed nests like weavers, or a bird house, or cavity nests like owls. I think it just made it more distinctly a nest rather than a round dipping bed, especially once all the blankets and pillows are placed. So they'll put up veils and curtains and basically make a fort but permanent. It's the focal point of their homes, basically.

The ranchers' has to be comfortable and accessible to Tango as well but I imagine most avian families straight up make a whole room for just the nest and no stairs. I feel like avians are really bad about making accessible architecture. In raau I imagine their world a lot liek ours but I also image it without a housing crisis or lots of generic homes due to the needs of the various species usually meaning a LOT of people build their own homes.

Feather earrings I also imagine as a nuclear family thing between avians only, for the inner flock so to speak. It's sort of like a house flag, 'these are my siblings/parents/children' type thing. If that involves a non avian a non-feather item might be included, like a blazerod or scale. It's mostly a signal to other avians, though (and pretty). Like if Jimmy removed Grian's feather from his earring that would be A Statement. there isn't really any ritual involved with giving them, either, it's just expected. Outer flock aka friends, extended family, and unmarried partners aren't really involved.

Avians also have a migratory instinct in raau. Though they have specific birds they might resemble I think of them as their own whole species 99% of the time (Jimmy's ability to see sounds being the 1% unique due to their bird thing). In the case of the modern avians this usually takes the form of frequent travelling or nomadic lifestyles and taking up temporary/seasonal work.

A lot of cowboys were avians, and probably a lot of those world travel blogs were run by avians. Probably a lot of jobs discriminate against avians assuming they'll want a bunch of vacation time or up and quit like how women with families are treated. Jimmy doesn't travel much as he's more of a ground-bird and the farms he worked on were plenty spacious, but even he gets antsy if he's stuck at the ranch too long and usually is the one to go out scavenging with Grian or visiting the hospital.

And finally obviously their wings are very important to them. It's their everything, even if they're like Jimmy and don't fly too much. It's their main survival strategy so being grounded makes them very anxious and stressed. Even Jimmy who hasn't been able to fly-fly for several years in raau still instinctively tries to launch himself in the air when startled or attacking. Clipping or damaging them is the worst thing imaginable to them so they treat them with the utmost care.

It's how they display being healthy and well-groomed to others, like a nice clean haircut, and they puff up and flatten largely in the same displays and posturing as your average bird as far as communicating emotions goes.

Blazeborn:

I don't have nearly as much for blazeborn since there's only one of them, but I think their instincts are very cat-like as far as behaviour. They are completely in control of their ability to burn or produce fire, like rapidash. They get VERY firey and turn into a fire hedgehog when enraged, but if they know who it is then even then they won't burn someone they don't want to burn. It's more like a threat display, but of course whoever it's directed at will usually be burnt.

They tend to use their tail to communicate, and they use it like cats use purring; when they're comfortable or are trying to comfort themselves they wrap it around things. Otherwise it communicates much the same way as a cat's tail.

In raau their flame colour is an indication of their internal temperature regulation. Blue/white is extra hot and red is cooled down, yellow is in-between, average temp. Since it's also hair it can't be put out, but it does crackle and steam when wet. They do NOT do well in cold weather, obviously, nor weather that heavily fluctuates.

A lot of traditional blazeborn homes are in deserts or underground, and modern blazeborn-friendly homes ALWAYS have the main part of the house as a basement suit type deal with plenty of climate control, where it's much easier to regulate temperatures to warm and dry.

They have an attraction to metals, though tango's a little freak who likes iron more than gold. Them and pig-hybrids are probably the reason for the gold standard. Probably a lot of traditions involve metalworking and the like. It's instinctive to be attracted to metals, but the working of them into things is cultural.

Also in raau specifically blazerods are a whole effort and ordeal to produce. it's basically blazeborn cartilage.

Others:

raau doesn't have magic, so races defined by their magical capabilities are no around, like vex or witches.

Medusas like Cleo basically have multiple brains like an octopus and so require a lot of calories and nutrition. They're also immune to snake venom and can develop immunity to other toxins, thus they're actually very reliable for the development of anti-venoms and vaccines.

Scott's an elf but it doesn't mean much other than he's tall and has slightly pointy ears. They have a lot of cultural stuff, but Scott's not a very traditional guy.

Fauns have a lot of prey-instincts, so they tend to have very strong fight or flight instincts at the smallest thing. They're also a bit odd to most people. They're social but in a shield sort of way rather than a cooperative sort of way, so their moral compass can seem off. If I let myself I would make so much faun lore so I intentionally stopped myself there. The only other thing is their horns/antlers shed annually and so they treat them almost like how others treat family picture books or height charts.

Tiny Tom is both a voidwalker and a cow faun hybrid. As far as voidwalkers go they hate being looked in the eye and are similar to avians with a migratory instinct.

Merfolk like Lizzie need to live in humid climates if they are going to live out of the water, and have very strong schooling instincts. They'll often have very large families and friend groups. Home pools were unsurprisingly something that first appeared in land-living merfolk homes. It's an absolute necessity, as well as a large bathroom or full on bathhouse. (they separate the bathroom and the toilet as separate rooms)

And that's about all the things I've thought about. It seems like a lot when actually typed out and explained, but a lot of it's mostly common fanon maybe adjusted here and there for the setting of raau.

#raau ask #raau notes #raau notes: setting

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natsmagi · 21 days

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man as someone who also draws yet tries to be critical with the media and art i follow yeah i agree that artists could learn to draw diverse designs (not targeted to you just a general opinion) and such yet people forget that in the end we don't really own diversity neither representation and the way anons keep harassing you is ridiculous and tiring it makes me sad and i hope it doesn't discourage you.

i love your art, i really love scrolling through your page and see you rant about natsumugi it makes me get even more invested in them plus you draw them so pretty. i'm not even strongly into femstars but the way you draw natsume specifically influenced a bit in my hcs about him because idk it just fits him and perhaps because original natsume is already a bit androgynous this last remark is just a little side note i hope it's not too random lol and the way you draw both natsume and tsumugi makes my little sapphic heart go yippee

WAHHH it doesnt discourage me at all anon dont worry!! i have incredibly lovely friends, mutuals and followers who bring me immense joy and drives me to create even more! these anons are moreso just annoying, but harmless in the end!

and i agree that no artist should be forced to draw X Y Z, specifically if theyre just a hobbyist, but i do wanna say i think more diverse stuff should be greatly encouraged! and by this i mean, if you see someone try their hands at something more diverse that theyre not used to, dont be a dick about how their portrayal isnt good enough, thats just gonna make them want to stop and never exit their comfort zone again. what you should instead do is appreciate that theyre trying! and if perhaps the portrayal is offensive or REALLY misunderstands something, you can give criticisms on how to improve. the reason im still kind of trying to figure out the best way i can depict the tsumugi of my dreams is because many times when ive had people notice shes a bit softer, they get really happy about it! and seeing people be happy makes me happy and makes me wanna learn more! alot of my art is trial and error, i sometimes go back to old habits or stick to what im used to, but in the back of my head i still have a drive to learn and to improve, because people have been so kind to me. and i really wish people would realize its this kindness and uplifting that makes people want to continue learning, to continue improving, to experiment and see what sticks. shaming people for trying wont get you the results you want

AND WAHHHH THANK YOU!!! THAT MAKES ME SO HAPPY!!! i love everything about switch SO incredibly much (incase u couldnt alr tell) and i love to just!! gush about them!!!! and i love women too!!! i love to gush about women!!!!!! this blog makes me incredibly happy, and it makes me even happier that i get to share it with such kindhearted people despite the few bad apples here is a little preview of the tsumugi also❤️

#I REALLY LIKE THE WAY SHE LOOKS SO FAR SO I WANTED TO SHARE IT #and also to let u know THE GRIND NEVER STOPS 💪💪💪💪💪💪💪#LOVE FOR WOMEN CONQUERS ALL #ask

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waywardsalt · 3 months

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Can you please tell more about your redeemed Bellum that hangs around with the main cast in post-canon? Or, like, your hum!Bellum ideas in general?

Ooooh, I have a lot I could say about Bellum. I'll go a bit off this ask and just talk about him in the context of post-ph and some other aus, since he's fun and because most of them share the common thread of him being in human form often. This will probably be messy, but I'll divide it into sections to force myself to stick to one topic at once to keep this from devolving into what might as well be a transcript of a discord dms infodump.

(there should be a keep reading just under here- there are a few thousand words under the cut- if it's lower than it should be then idk, even while drafting this i had issues with it moving further down than i put it)

Human Bellum Basics (mostly design stuff)

It's less of a human Bellum au sort of thing, and more like a design for what if Bellum had a human form that he could change into. Kind of like Oshus having his human form while actually being a whale, it's the idea that Bellum can switch between his human form and his demon form at will, and I have spent... way, way too long trying to figure out this design.

I can't quite remember why I decided to give Bellum a human form (could've been anything from doing it for the hell of it to for shipping purposes) and it took AGES to decide on his final design.

Describing it would take a few paragraphs, so there's art! Commission pieces by @roskii specifically, he's great, he did great, check him out. (i dont know how to make these smaller :)))))) enjoy)

Half of it is directly taken from his demon design, he keeps the tentacles (not always present, he manifests them at will and tend to have much less reach when he's human), his eye, his teeth, his hair color (kind of), and half of it is more... brought in by ideas related to Bellum in general, with some vague references to that demon design; specifically him being scarred all over is a mixture of the idea of him as a violent and almost warlike creature, while also vaguely referencing the markings on his demon body (in the earliest drawing I ever did of a human Bellum design, he did just straight-up have those markings. That picture no longer exists, I'm sure).

As a basic reference, I suppose, in the second image, the character to the right of Bellum (Damien Fletcher) is an oc of mine, and therefore a character I designed (totally worth mentioning tho that with both Damien and Bellum while I did technically design them and gave roskii my notes for how they look, he also took some small liberties with their designs and... ugh theyre great im keeping them), so those two could provide some insight to my character design sensibilities, even if they're just a small fraction of the (mental) character designs I have.

Bellum is made up of pieces of his canonical design, pieces that I think make sense considering what we know about him, and just pieces of other character designs. He has more or less the same haircut as Joker/the protagonist from Persona 5. His hair has been like that for a while, but seeing Joker's hair helped me figure out specifically what I wanted.

It's been... hard, trying to give him a humanoid design, I've seen a bunch of other human Bellum designs, looked at other Zelda characters with both human and inhuman forms, took inspiration for what I could do and how and what parts could be carried over. His hair is easy to explain, it literally is meant to look like he does as a demon. Easy. It is absolutely directly inspired by that bitch from Tokyo Ghoul. I'm not looking up the character name I don't care about Tokyo Ghoul.

I keep him having sharp teeth, I've transposed those markings on his bodies as being scars (which I'll elaborate a little more on later), kept his eye and that he only has one main eye (there is nothing under the eyepatch. It's just smooth. If you've seen The Goonies, it's like what's going on with One-Eyed Willy. That's probably where I got it from tbh), the yellow and black color scheme is further kept with a yellow tank top-esque shirt and black pants and boots, and while they're not constantly present he still has access to his tentacles.

He's not human, just pretending to be.

Leading me to some other little details, such as his lack of ears. And nails. And. Other things not visible that he didn't bother with. He pretends to be human, but doesn't care enough to look truly human- though he can pass as human. When he does bother to actually look human, he does have nails and ears, and changes his eye to a human one, with a color of choice. He goes by 'Warren' when actually pretending to be human. It doesn't mean anything in particular it's just a play on how 'bellum' is latin for 'war'. But, most of the time, he's not really trying. A sense of lack of real care is something I try to communicate with his humanoid design, hence him having generally baggy and plain clothes.

The 'war' thing about his character I think is decently expressed in game with him having an army of sorts with the phantoms and him just coming off as sort of violent but strategic. He also seems very scrappy, mostly attacks with direct contact including just straight up running into Link, and seems to put a lot of stock into sheer force and just fucking killing you at any cost after a certain point, but seems genuinely wary and cornered once someone is shown to be capable of actually posing an actual threat. I like the idea of human Bellum being a bit of a brawler in a sense, fighting with his bare hands and just being incredibly violent when he fights like a human, really only breaking out his more supernatural abilities when he just wants to get shit over with.

Part of the fun with Bellum is that there isn't much to him, so I'm taking a lot of liberties with him. His loose clothes are something that won't really get in the way of him fighting and do the bare minimum, and the boots he wears have metal toes for just a bit of extra ways to hurt people. He's built but still soft in places, not intended to be a muscular as Damien, he's intentionally designed his own human form to be a bit unassuming, so I've kept that he's made of a lot of circular shapes, his face is meant to be a bit of a round shape, his hair gives a round shape, and though he's fairly tall (he and Damien are 6 feet tall btw Linebeck throws off every post-ph cast height comparison) I think of him being a bit... small? If that makes sense? His clothes help with that, they're slightly oversized, and his posture isn't great; He's a bit like a delinquent, starting fights intentionally for the sake of violence and putting little effort into his appearance.

His scars are technically cosmetic. They aren't results of injuries; technically nothing but the Phantom Sword and things like it can hurt him. His scars are references to the markings on his demon body, and just further reflection of him being a creature all about violence and conflict. They aren't totally consistent between the times he uses his human form, but some of the bigger ones are, most notably the scar across his face.

I'll be honest. My earliest human Bellum designs were some Tumblr sexyman shit and I've been trying to ditch that SO BAD ever since. I think I've done well. The scar across his face is a big one. An added imperfection, a massive facial blemish that isn't really conventionally great to look at. His nose specifically has been though some development stages, at first I kept switching between different full nose shapes, then brought in the facial scar and decided that he'd be missing a chunk of that nose, then, decided, fuck it! I can't decide on a nose shape, so he gets no nose at all. I think it works pretty well and I like it.

I really tried to get in a lot of his personality to the design, and I don't want to go into all of it in this section, so just keep in mind that a lot of his design has been influenced by the way I've decided to write him, and some stuff I've already mentioned might be made a little clearer when I get into that. As a quick aside, he's pale partially because I've intentionally made him look halfway similar to Link, and partially because I figure he does not get a lot of sun; you literally meet him in what is effectively a basement, and from the way he operates, probably hasn't made himself seen in a while by the time the events of the game happen. He can't get sunburns, but, as he cannot change a lot of extremely major things about his human form, he can't manually change his skin tone in a major way, and it's likely that when he was considerably younger and newer and spent time in the sun, his skin tone would be closer to Oshus's, so a bit more tan.

In the Context of Phantom Hourglass and Post-PH

Moving swiftly on, as there is pretty much no real info about Bellum's background, I have taken matters into my own hands and decided a lot of it for myself in headcanon; Bellum is technically Oshus's son. Not in the traditional sense, but he was created by Oshus and can very much be considered his child, and to an extent, Ciela, Leaf, and Neri are all also Oshus's kids due to them being created by him (yea even considering Ciela calling him 'grandpa', in her and my defense she lost her memories and he is old as a human), therefore making (in some terms) Bellum to be Oshus's son and the brother of the three spirits. I think it's an interesting dynamic, to have Oshus be the one responsible for Bellum's existence, and for the three spirits you travel with and help you defeat Bellum to be closely related to him.

Oshus himself (when you get the hourglass in ph) says that the sand of hours is made of force gems of the ocean king (whatever... that wording means)- which then suggests that at the end of the day, all sands of hours are derived from the power of the ocean king, and Bellum dissolves into that sand at the end of the game, and I am standing in front of a wild-looking conspiracy cork board trying to piece this all together. I find it interesting if Oshus was the one who created Bellum before he created the three spirits.

(This is a topic for another post/fic but Leaf and Neri were neglected so bad in ph and it would be interesting to see more of how they feel abt Ciela before she gets her memories back and how they feel abt... anything else ig. I think they're neat, too, and I like tying the spirits together with Bellum in this way)

In Phantom Hourglass, it's strongly suggested (mostly through dialogue) that it's been a decent amount of time since Bellum defeated Oshus and took over the Temple of the Ocean King and created the Ghost Ship (though I suppose it could be possible that the Ghost Ship's existence precedes Bellum taking over that temple and defeating Oshus), but things across that sea are relatively calm, despite the new influx of monsters and the Ghost Ship making most people too afraid to sail. No one knows it's Bellum, though, and people do know about the Ocean King, so I wonder if Bellum is known about at all by the general public, or is a being that's more or less completely unknown? My personal theory is that he's vaguely known in some sense, as an obscure deity, and that he was behind the collapse of the Cobble Kingdom, since they were aligned with the Ocean King and Bellum appears to be his direct enemy and would likely then target the allies of his enemy.

Bellum seems to do a lot of behind the scenes stuff, never been seen until the end of the game and not even being mentioned until halfway through. As I think I've said before, he's practically won by the time he comes across Link and Tetra, the Ghost Ship going out and collecting people for him while he sits at the bottom of the temple and drains anyone who might be heading directly for him. He doesn't even seem to concerned about hunting Oshus down for good, and I suspect he likely doesn't even know about Ciela being split apart, so (asides from my idea that gods/spirits/stuff like that only being able to be sealed away, only properly killed under certain circumstances) I bet there's a level of confidence that he's got things under tight enough wraps that he's good to do whatever he wants.

Aaaand then he panics when he realizes how much of a wrench in his plans Link is, throwing two sea monsters at him and causing earthquakes, he's a procrastinator, I think. That, or he underestimated this kid. Both are very possible. Either way, it's interesting to look at what he's done and caused, hiding away the spirits and beating back the Ocean King, taking over his temple, creating the Ghost Ship to roam indefinitely, screwing with the Yook and wiping out pretty much all of the Isle of Ember, and likely being the reason behind the increased number of monsters. If you really look into it, while most characters don't really seem to realize, things are kind of fucked at the start of Phantom Hourglass, and it's interesting how Oshus himself seems powerless and even dissuades Link from giving it a shot, even if he secretly wants him to go and handle things.

With my idea of Bellum being a sort of technical relative to Oshus and the spirits, it opens up a handful of new avenues for motivation beyond just being after securing control and a steady stream of prey, I enjoy the idea of it being a matter of him becoming more and more ambitious, far beyond the station he was created for; going off of his name and ability to create phantoms, I imagine Oshus created him specifically to be warlike, perhaps initially with the intention of having him as a more violent protector of the realm, maybe to keep monsters in check or maybe just as a secondary deity for the world of the ocean king; I'll admit, I'm still a little foggy on what Bellum would've been initially created for, the spirits are easy to figure out, but I do figure it was something not as passive as just representing something, I imagine it as a deliberate opposite to Oshus himself to account for his weaknesses. Either way, I figure a part of Bellum's motivation involves him wanting more than he was given access to by Oshus, and deciding to fully wage war against him in a sense. The short and silly version is that Bellum is Oshus' shitty disowned son. Oshus isn't entirely innocent in whatever I decide caused Bellum to turn on him and the spirits, but Bellum does suck: that is important. The Cobble Kingdom looks like it's been destroyed for a while, I figure that was Bellum's first major target when he started outwardly going after Oshus and hunting the humans of the realm.

In Post-PH, he's the group's pet evil squid on a very very very short leash until he starts behaving himself and having a character arc.

Effectively, Bellum doesn't die at the end of Phantom Hourglass, instead being broken down into the sand of hours he's made of and being sealed inside the Phantom Sword- after all, after the final boss, the sand Bellum turns into goes into the Phantom Sword. I imagine that the Phantom Sword, after breaking and restoring Oshus, turns into the hourglass for Link to keep, while Oshus and the spirits keep the remaining sands, therefore keeping a hold of Bellum. (A bit like Oshus just being left alone after Bellum defeating him, they can't really kill Bellum so they just keep an eye on him while he's in a weakened state) They kind of just keep him prisoner at the bottom of the Temple for a bit, and Oshus finally decides to send him to Link's world as a punishment, since he's at his weakest and Oshus wants to get him to learn some lesson, it's a work in progress. Bellum is grounded in Post-PH.

It's basically that 'the villain when you unlock him as a playable character' bit, where he's quite a bit weaker than he is in Phantom Hourglass, though mostly for the sake of keeping things balanced, so Bellum can't break everything for everyone. He's still powerful, he still accesses his demon form, can't be conventionally killed or injured, and move through walls and turn people to stone, the whole deal, it's just that his demon form's size is impacted (i hc that the size of his demon form can be manipulated at will, but the largest size is dependent of how much power/stored life force he has. he's small at the start of post-ph, but his human form isnt impacted at all. i imagine that for beings like oshus and bellum, their human form is a like a 'low power mode' kinda thing) So Bellum is the Post-PH crew's fourth member, the swabbie on the ship and pet sea monster when they need it and when he has the energy for it.

Bellum is kept mostly in line by a vague fear of Link and his general fear, respect, and curiosity about Linebeck. Linebeck is usually the one holding onto Bellum's leash. Bellum is decently civil with the group from the start, since he's weak and unable to return home until Oshus permits it or he gathers enough power to make that trip, and works mostly as a fighter- when he wants to. The earliest limitation I came up for him, since he's the member with the highest chance of breaking things, is that he will just straight-up choose not to help. He decides he's busy, decides it's not his problem, or other limitations, such as his involvement likely to cause more problems that they solve, since he's rather destructive when fighting.

He's the least sociable most of the time, for obvious reasons, but can pretend, and has the least... casual skills to offer to the group, hence why he gets stuck as swabbie (also general disrespect/as a punishment for the ph thing) and it takes a while for him to properly warm up to the rest of the group. He and Linebeck start off on decent terms and get closer through them just initially trusting each other, he and Link take the longest to get used to each other for... obvious reasons, it takes a lot of fighting together and seeing that they can rely on each other and they learn to be decent with each other just by existing in the same space, and things with Damien start off half decent, Damien was not present during Phantom Hourglass (obviously) and doesn't have the full context of how much he sucks, but it starts decent, gets worse when he learns what happened, and then gets good again because Damien's kind of amiable in general and sees that Linebeck thinks he's fine.

SO! To actually address your question about him being 'redeemed'- he does have a bit of an arc that I'm still mentally workshopping. He isn't entirely redeemed, as the group's general morality is a big off-kilter when Link isn't looking or is willing to get a little gray with things, and there's not really a whooooole lot of atonement Bellum can do in terms of the volume of bullshit he pulled in the past. It's less him atoning or w/e for the bullshit he's done, that's not entirely feasible, it's more him just. being forced to Be Decent and learn some actual kindness and think about more than just his own survival, he's essentially forced to actually appreciate life and the world, it's more him actually... experiencing the world for a reason other than consumption and war and conflict and doing what he's been told, he's effectively just on this long voyage with Linebeck, Link, and Damien, going with them from island to island and seeing what's up. I'm going to try and keep empathy out of it, so he's not really relating on a visceral level, more just choosing to be kind and take gentler paths to solving problems and interacting with others. He's also the group gremlin.

The way I write Bellum is definitionally inspired by other characters, Power from Chainsaw Man comes to mind in how he has a kind of shitty brat attitude at times, he'd fling vegetables across the room because he's a piece of shit who likes live meat. He's got his shitty messy delinquent loser side, where he causes problems and acts like some asshole teenager, and he's got his more serious, calm, almost professional seeming side that reminds the group that he's a few centuries old at the least and practically a god in his own right; generally outside of Post-PH I would pick one of these two sides to focus on for aus, but in Post-PH I need to figure out how the two of them work with how Bellum generally operates.

He's interested in Linebeck and initially decides to go along because he wants to figure him out, but grows to enjoy the rest of the group and that curiosity expands to involve the world as a whole; he experiences things like art and music, where he can't just brute-force his way into a satisfactory outcome and has to learn and find his own style, he reads books and listens to stories and sees the different ways humans live on the seas and I want his arc to, in some part, be about him just finding meaning in the world beyond what he does to secure survival, and the other members of the group introduce him to those other facets of life that he has access to, has had access to. The other part is the group getting Bellum to see most living things as more than just prey for him to hunt and consume, but that generally goes hand in hand with the prior point, as he actually enjoys life and figures out what he likes beyond the basic things he was created for.

He can't fall back on just smashing through everything or creating phantoms, since he's far too weak to do either effectively at the start, and I intend to just force Bellum into basically just being a human character with some unusually powerful magic at his fingertips, first just wanting to build himself back up to what he was in Phantom Hourglass, then just getting to see things in a new light. I'm not sure how to explain it or even what I'll want to do when I get to it, but that's the general gist of his arc, I think.

Other than that, he's just the fourth members of the crew with a serious knowledge of... a lot of things as a centuries-old demon and the hardest hitter in the group who can't and won't cook for shit and kind of just learns to actually live without constantly gunning for those bare necessities long after he's gotten them. I don't want it to be 'he learns to be human' because he... isn't human, but just him appreciating life and seeing some value in it, especially as something with as much power as Bellum, it's a bit messy and I'm still figuring it out, but I've got the general direction figured out.

Bellum is effectively the ship's best defender, and ends up fitting into the group as a friend and with his own specific role with the other individual members of the group. Linebeck kind of kickstarts his arc for him and connects with him the most and Bellum generally stays the closest with him, but Damien and Link help him see other little corners of life, as well as other characters he has to interact with, and I think I want Bellum's side of the story to have the most outstanding mundane-ity to it- there's absolutely meant to be a slice-of-life aspect to Post-PH, but I want the biggest points of Bellum's arc to be comparably the most mundane. It's the little things with him. The others have little things, too, but... I'm not sure how to express the difference, but I promise there is a difference.

Outside of Post-PH, though, when Bellum is present in a big way, his arc either tackles a similar idea in a different way, is just about something entirely different, or he doesn't have an arc at all, either due to not being a big enough part of the story or just straight up not being present.

In the Context of AUs

Bellum is only present in a handful of aus, either fully present as a character, halfway present, or just being referenced. When he is present in an au, he's usually some kind of major character, and he's notable in the crimson king au, the space au, the murder mystery au, and the horror au and one of my 'ruined hyrule' aus. (the horror and ruined hyrule au will be put together for this bc bellum's role in both are very similar) (for reference, here's my au explanation post)

In the horror au and ruined hyrule au, Bellum serves juuuust about the same role, just with different capabilities, contexts, all of that, but it's more or less the same thing. He's frequently present, but usually not acknowledged, and is very close to Linebeck in both, and the two of them pretty much rely on each other to live due to circumstances out of their control; they didn't really go into this whole thing liking each other, but have been more or less forced to become each other's friends due to proximity and just. Needing the others' presence in order to survive. In both, Bellum usually is a character who knows more than the others, but doesn't bother sharing that information since it's either not totally relevant or he just doesn't want to, and he tends to be protective of Linebeck, half because he needs him in order to live, half just because he's ended up liking him. (there is. more to say. but since i may actually write one of these aus [likely ruined hyrule bc the horror one has to be visual and it is VERY plotless rn] i'm not gonna go into much more depth since it would require spoilers lol)

Can't say a whole lot about the space au, either, since the story of that one is still a work in progress, and Bellum isn't particularly a major character, though he is important to some B-plot stuff. Without digging up too much world building and background and general story stuff and important plot bits, he's got a fairly close relationship to Linebeck in this au, as a general beneficiary and friend, and he actually tends to mind his own business and just wants to hold his own position; he's not really antagonistic or anything, but definitionally morally dubious even if he doesn't really directly do a whole lot.

In the Crimson King au, though, Bellum is one of the main characters, and a bit different than in ph-related stuff. He spends a lot of time in his human form, only switching to his little demon form a handful of times, and usually just for fun. He plays the role of Linebeck's closest friend and beneficiary, practically being the reason why Linebeck is able to do any of the things he does in the story, helping him from behind the scenes at times and balancing that business with Linebeck with his more outward appearance as a mostly normal guy working for the person who runs his section of the city... who also happens to be him. The vague politics in this au would take a bit to explain in full, but Bellum in this au spends a lot of time keeping his actual identity under wraps, the basic premise being that he's decided to integrate himself into current mortal society like a normal person to see what trouble he can cause, how he could sustain himself while keeping things stable, and to see just how far he can go- essentially, the only danger he faces is if others figure out what he is, but even then, he knows he could very easily cut his losses and go back to what he's done best.

He's not very active in the main plot, mostly giving Linebeck assignments and pulling strings behind the scenes in order to help and keep him safe, but Bellum does occasionally meddle directly in Linebeck's situation whenever it relates to him, when he needs something extra done, or, later in the story, when he gets a bit worried about Linebeck. His general arc is essentially him owning up to the fact that he does, in fact, care about Linebeck's well-being. Crimson King Bellum is fun, because he can't really just be 'violent demon', and I just like the supporting role I've got him in. He's Linebeck's rich friend who hires him to kill people for him. It's fun.

How I Like to Write Him With Linebeck

Of course, Bellum is going to have stuff with Linebeck, both in aus and in post-ph. Bellum has interactions and relationships with other characters, but the dynamic(s) with Linebeck tend to be the most diverse and important.

With aus: There’s usually a general sense that Bellum is above Linebeck, both in the power sense and in the sense that he’s typically his boss or in charge of him, but in a handful they are on equal footing (specifically, the modern school one, where they’re just classmates.)- the most common dynamic is usually along the lines of Bellum hiring Linebeck to kill people for him. Bellum is typically someone that provides Linebeck with things like payment or equipment or safety- in the Crimson King au, he gives Linebeck a fair amount of money, and supplies his equipment and gives him a place to live when he does jobs for him.

I like to imagine there's a level of... recognition? Not empathy, trying to keep that to a minimum... He's almost gentle with Linebeck, and is uncharacteristically merciful towards him. In post-ph, Linebeck survives being possessed and this marks him as notable to Bellum, since most people he possess die very soon after being released, so he's initially motivated by curiosity and a desire to observe Linebeck when he acts less violently- that curiosity is the biggest reason why he's cordial with Linebeck across my aus as well.

With Phantom Hourglass-centric stuff (which is what I'll mostly just talk about here, since it's kind of the 'base' for all other Bellum and Linebeck stuff I do), Linebeck and Bellum start on halfway decent terms, I'm planning a Bellumbeck fic sometime in the future, which is a bit less focused on that actual fight and more on whatever's going on between Linebeck and Bellum. I'm still trying to pin down exactly what I want with Linebeck and Bellum's dynamic.

I’ve fallen back into shipping them, (Still iffy on ship name lmfao, Bellumbeck is taken by the game and ‘Linebellum’ is lame imo, so I’ve been sticking with just ‘bellum x linebeck’) but it’s not really typically romantic/sexual, though there are some aspects of both, it’s still kind of abstract and easier to define with example stuff rather than just trying to explain it in a concise paragraph.

They both go out of their way to effectively research each other before properly meeting, starting as just trying to find advantageous information, but eventually just doing research out of curiosity, especially on Linebeck’s end, hunting down any material that so much as alludes to Bellum while Oshus refuses to say anything extra on the topic. They have a mutual interest and curiosity about each other.

With Bellum, its a similar curiosity with how Linebeck survives being possessed, and a general interest in him as a person, as Bellum doesn't really care much about the world beyond how it can serve him, but felt the need to look into Linebeck. A lot of the time, Bellum starts with the intention of exploiting Linebeck in some way, then ends up actually caring about him, he usually goes through variations of the same arc regarding Linebeck. It works with Linebeck for me since I tend to read and write him as fairly morally gray, so he's more willing to reciprocate Bellum.

(There's also the whole bit with Linebeck being kind of a monsterfucker and having a thing for being tied up and just a handful of like. sexual stuff on Linebeck's end, but we're talking about Bellum's perspective here we can't be focusing on Linebeck)

Bellum primarily operates with survival on the mind, and at odds with anything that might get in his way, and secondarily treats mortal creatures as something to study. When his attempt to use Linebeck fails, he shifts to that studying, and therefore has some respect for him due to his survival. They both focus quite a lot on survival, and don't have the most interest in making connections, seeing most relationships as transactional. They understand each other; Bellum sees Linebeck's mind when possessing him, and therefore knows a great deal about him.

There are similarities between them; not-great relationships with their fathers, a strong desire for survival at any cost, generally low empathy and a habit of mostly viewing others for how they can be used, curiosity about anatomy, a higher tolerance for things like blood, gore, things that would likely make others squeamish, they both hate Ciela...

(As an aside to that last one, an idea I've decided to integrate into my ph stuff and may touch on in a future fic is that Linebeck calling Ciela 'sparkles' gives her a strong sense of deja-vu before she gets all of her memories back; it's something Bellum would call her, when he was more cordial with the other spirits)

Bellum hangs around on the ship, and he hangs around Linebeck the most, to the point of being annoying, but learns what boundaries are and ends up respecting them decently. I lean more into... things just working out, Bellum more or less being put in a situation where he chooses to change things up and be a bit kinder, starting with the guy he's decided was the catalyst for all of this.

He gets along well enough with Damien (damien ends up in that shipping, too, considering that he's already dating linebeck by the time bellum sorts his own feelings out, so in post-ph, bellum ends up being a sort of on-and-off polycule member), he is eventually friendly with Link, often because Linebeck likes him as well. It takes a very long time for he and Link to warm up to each other, so they'll likely end up in situations where they must rely on each other at the start of things.

Bellum is… very not used to social stuff or acting human, and isn’t even very used to his human form at the start, so he does spend that time with Linebeck while he figures things out, as well. Linebeck's not the best role model for decent social interaction, especially since he works on dismantling his own mask and figuring himself out for a bit at the start of post-ph, but he's the only person Bellum tolerates and respects at that start.

Bellum eventually gets roped into helping Linebeck cook, follows him around for ship maintenance, watches him patch up wounds, and just ends up as a crew member that can kind of fill any basic role, but he’s not making it much further than swabbie.

I haven’t actually written a ton of interaction between them yet, but what I have written always comes off as casual, almost humorous, they joke around with each other and Bellum is detached and unserious at times, but very capable of switching to dead seriousness. A lot of the time, Linebeck tends to take things more seriously at face value, but Bellum is more prone to joking around due to the fact that very few consequences mean anything to him.

He and Linebeck are typically close in one sense or another in most things where they're included, and I generally consider all dynamics between them to fall under the ship umbrella, because I don't consider it strictly romantic (though it usually ends up being vaguely like that), just more that there's some kind of intimacy between them at some point. It's a relationship whose dynamic I think is interesting given the... lack of actual interaction between them, but with just enough interesting conclusions that can be drawn.

I guess it's similar to the general stuff I have about Bellum, kind of just scraping ideas together from canon and then following whatever threads can be connected to them, while trying to make sure it still has roots in that canon. It's similar to my personal 'design philosophy' or whatever for my aus.

I've also considered making their relationship parasitic in someway, as a sort of homage/callback/reference to their canonical relationship, but it's not entirely a direction I really want to go in, and I feel like some aus get decently close.

Final Points

I think Bellum's really neat, so considering the general lack of information or depth to him, I've been playing with expanded ideas and building up my own ideas for him, specific within the context of Phantom Hourglass and a post-ph setting, while many of my other ideas with him tend to then derive from that.

His (human) design is one I've spent a very long time figuring out, trying to mix his demon design in with more human traits, trying to keep him distinctive without getting too complicated, and trying to have that design represent him decently with a fair bit of reasoning behind a lot of that design. It's something Bellum himself controls to a certain degree, so it's in a bit of a crossroads between portraying him based on his character, and being something he uses to come off as generally innocuous.

I've got a decent idea of what Bellum's whole deal is in Phantom Hourglass and afterwards, and I use him in a fair number of aus, often in tangent with Linebeck, whom I often give him some kind of intimate relationship, be it romantic or some other form of closeness, based off of ideas for ways they would interact and why.

Bellum's fun! He's fun as he is, and he's fun to build off of and develop further than what we see in the game. And giving him the ability to shift into a humanoid shape gives even more room to play around in. I don't know when I first came up with the idea, but I've had ideas for a human form Bellum for quite some time now, I've just only recently really started solidifying a lot of it. Even between the time when I got the ask and finished it, I came up with new ideas.

But for now, these are the broad strokes! Not just about post-ph humanoid Bellum, just about my ideas for him in general, though it all really relates back to that one in particular, honestly.

He's surprisingly fun to speculate about! I didn't really expect Bellum to end up as one of my favorite LoZ characters, but I guess any character can end up as your favorite if you spend enough time thinking about him. At the end of the day I think he's funky, and he's fun to use in a post-ph setting.

#asks #goopi-e #bellum #long post #salty talks #linebeck #he's important <3 #phantom hourglass #post ph #i have like no excuse for why this took so long. initially it was bc i was waiting on that bellum commission but then like #the day i wrote this (+ the prior) tag i bought and played fallout new vegas for a few hours. it fell in with my other writing projects lol #i think rn myb iggest issue w/ post ph is that everyone seems to revolve around linebeck a bit much #idk if thats. terrible a breaker i mean hes their captain hes kinda the main character he's the one link (heh) between all of them #bellum probably has the biggest arc bc hes the shittiest at the start and everyone is already kinda partway through one #like i think links is gonna be abt him disconnecting from being a hero and just enjoying life on his own terms and doing non hero things #linebecks is uh. trauma recovery. among other things. like everyone has trauma recovery as a part of it but linebecks is the big one #damiens is... man idk hes just There i think his is gonna have smth to do with his relationship w/ linebeck and the others #damien is just some fucking dude hes not too terribly traumatized or has this huge place in the world he's jsut some trans guy #it kinda sucks that a lot of the stuff i think up for him relates to linebeck like i want him to have his own thing but i made him too...#hes too ok with things!!!!! hes just some fucking guy!!!! maybe i can have him just figure out his place in this larger world hes exploring #anyways bellum needs to be nerfed in a handful of different ways bc otherwise hes a get out of jail free card in a lot of contexts #ughhh this took too long im sorry but i just kept coming up with new stuff id practically classify this as a fic #this took a while to plan and this fucking thing is also so long and it still doesnt really cover everything #not even bc i havent fully figured out what i want to do with him like theres just stuff im uncertain on how to explain in a concise manner #the whole thing between link n bellum is kinda simple. they hate each other and then have to work together and decide that theyre decent #damien is just. pleasant most of the time. so hes kinda chill with bellum. he's had experience with minor gods n deities #his weird thing is that he is technically normal but he is on good terms with a lot of supernatural/godly beings #theres def a lot of random minor gods n spirits n supernatural creatures all over the great sea with the absence of larger gods' influence #kinda lost the point of the og ask so i hope thats ok

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liquidstar · 7 months

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you are like. the ultimate guy maker. you have so many distinct OCs. also imn kind of obsessed with how you draw eyes specifically

WAAA OMG I JUST SAW THIS BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH 🥺 THAT MAKES ME SO HAPPY TO HEAR... BC I LOVE MAKING OCS SO MUCH AND I TRY REALLLLYYY HARD TO MAKE THEM ALL DISTINCT W A BIG CAST SO. IT MEANS A LOT TO HEAR THAT IM DOING A DECENT JOB AT IT 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

AND ALSO THANK YOU ABT THE EYES. faces and facial features are something i do my best to make distinct and avoid same face syndrome.. there are aspects of it i still struggle with but i think ive gotten better! i think its mainly that my style is pretty simple so it can be hard to make certain things different without seeming out of place, but i try different stuff.... most recently w the eyes (eyelids specifically) i got a lot of help and input from my awesome good friend on different things to do to depict different shapes and types of eyelids which, which was honestly such a nice thing to do (and the friend in question will probably see this so hiiii <3)

but i also like to have fun with the eyeball lol. like drawing cool+weird shapes inside of the iris and stuff. and using two totally different colors for the iris and the "light reflection" inside it is really fun to me. i think it makes the character seem different... since i have a lot of little guys so i do my best to make them each stand out even if theyre just background characters. figuring out how to design all of them is FUN its just really cool to me and i like it a lot. and i think it helps me improve the more i do it too!

i simply think ocs are a lot of fun for a lot of different reasons, and i know i can get SOOO rambly abt stuff like this so ill stop myself here BUT before that i wanna say thank you again <3 stuff like this really motivates me to keep going with them! bc it means so much that there are ppl out there who notice them and care 🥹 thanks you <3

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shiteating · 1 year

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i tried to figure out exactly what was bothering me. my new phone stylus is very hard to hold so i had no good grip so the drawings look weird, but i think it conveys the idea for the most part. I PROMISE I DIDN'T TRY TO MISREPRESENT ONE OVER THE OTHER!!! the drawings just accidentally came out goofy 😭 its only to demonstrate the broad strokes anyway

admittedly v4x luka sits in the middle of this scale but they specifically used a """revamped""" version of her v2 design so. v4x doesnt exist and tbh ixima has kept her personality mostly intact in most v4x promotional artwork WHY AM I TALKING ABOUT V4X THIS ISNT ABOUT HER but yes. i think the weirdly saturated color palette is kind of.. i dont wanna say poorly put together but i was surprised by them. theyre quite stark. i think the earthiness of luka's old v2 outfit in comparison contributes a sort of maturity and sophistication. the fluffy hair really helps too. the eye shape is a huge point as well... not to mention the personalities just seem so....different.

the saturation values are surprisingly similar between the two which is sound and correct, its easy to read regardless of which one it is, so i cant continue to nitpick from most technical aspects. itd just be pedantic (tho tbh proseka luka's hair could stand to have more contrast)

i will say proseka's luka's silhouette is way more ambigious compared to old luka even though its almost the same outfit— i already closed my phone's editing soft of choice and i didn't save the version with the key arts but try for yourself, clip layer and turn both solid, the proseka version of her hair is so shapeless it hurts the overall shape and dynamicism of the design (IMO). i think its closer to ixima's take on it, but i never liked how ixima draws hair, people started making bald miku jokes for a reason.

idk if i have it in me to go blow by blow about why i prefer what and why i dont but im starting to feel grief over how luka is misrepresented.

#a #i guess!#might as well

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rt-lots · 6 months

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Joining in on the Ian and Rammy ask train… 🌂✏️ (and 🍎 specifically for Ian!)

TW for a fair bit of suicide talk!!!

umbrella - i assume this doesnt need an answer for both of them, bcuz they belong 2 the same story. i imagine ian and rammys story being a vidya game, and i guess itd b a psychological horror? which feels like, pretentious to say but the main scaries of the story are how much ians life sucks and he wants 2 die. so... i think itd count. thats all overarching stuff tho... most of ian n rammys time spent together is lightheared, i think. theyre two dudes hanging out and one of them is slowly coming to terms with the fact his suicidal thoughts won. whatever genre that is

pencil - WAHHH it depends a lot of the time... ian and rammy have definitely made a big resurgence in my brain recently (past month) bc im 18 and can post bout em, but also just cuz i love them sooo much and want to chew on them constantly. id say i write abt/draw them pretty frequently tho!! i doodle them on my school work and in notebooks a lot and they have some of the bigger galleries on my toyhouse lawl. i dont write much directly for their universe, but ive typed... many paragraphs to my friends just braindumping the shit i think about them. so, yeah, less often than id like, but theyre up there in my priorities of ocs :3

apple (for ian) - GRAHHHHHHHHHHH u dont know what demons uve unleashed w this. i already twed this post for suicide but im gonna move this part under the cut bc mentioning ians dad specifically ties a lot into the suicide aspect of the story

OKAY SO. ians family consists of his mom, sister, and him. his dad was in the picture when he was a little kid, like early elementary age, but ditched after some time. his relationship with both parents was relatively normal, they definitely couldve done a better job raising him, but they were never intentionally hurtful nor did they scar him at all. (well, correction, his MOM didnt scar him at all)

after ians dad left, though, his side of the family still kept in touch... they gave very flimsy reasonings for his fathers absence, why he couldnt make it to holidays, why he wasnt saying all these things directly, etc. it kept things strained and tense as the family knew things were being kept from them but never got to know why. the last interaction ian ever had w his dads side of the family was on his 18th birthday, where his uncle gifted him a silver handgun with his name carved into the handle. it was a hollow attempt to connect with ian, a display of violent masculinity that ian would later use to try and take his own life.

i dont have it fully figured out what this *means* for ians character, but its something i go insane about. ians only memories of his dad are him doing stereotypical masculine dad things w him, like fishing. maybe he didnt interact w ian ass if he was his child, but if he was his son, and that improper socialization is part of the reason he hates himself- why the gun is what kills him. but... i dunno really. ians social anxiety, addiction, and general collapsing in on himself are cuz of a life time of mental illness that went unchecked until he successfully isolated himself to the point no one *could* care, not just cuz daddy give him gun.

okay! that is NOT what u asked at all but now u know it. hehehe. of course ian and rammys story is a big wip forever so excuse me for any side tangents and/or general plot points w loose ends

but! as for his actual relationships w family (ill include sister since his relationship w mom isnt rlly fleshed out yet):

he and his mom havent spoken in 6 years, nor have he and his sister. he slowly faded out of their lives when he moved away, partly out of a subconscious desire to isolate and partly due to just not having the social confidence or energy to maintain regular communication w his family. his mom is the first person he talks to when he escapes his Puter, and she's his rock in his remaining months of recovery. shes very underdeveloped as a character atm, but what is certain is she tries her hardest to understand her sons struggles and support him, offering to pay for therapy for him. ian loves his mommy lalala

ian and his sister are... dddifferent. ian also had an average relationship w his sister, but shes a lot more upfront with him when it comes to talking about how his 6 year absence effected her than their mom. their mom, while wanting her children to seek help for their respective struggles, doesnt really want to actively talk about those things with them. shes terrified of saying the wrong thing, and it doesnt help that she doesnt even have a clue what *to* say. ians sister, though, isnt afraid to tell him "hey man we fucking missed you. your absence hurt a lot because i didnt have any friends either, and i wish we couldve had eachother. jackass" post main-story they are friendly and hang out. during his time w rammy, ian does talk about his thoughts on his sister before he left, that being that shes a "crazy bitch"... family <3

#walkie talkie #ian #ask game #would u believe me if i told you i missed multiple details i wanted to share here #i typed this for like 45 minutes AHHHH #i keep fucking answering these like totally unrelated to the original question sorry guys #can u tell i love my ocs #tw suicide mention #tw suicide #suicide mention #ask 2 tag also !!

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matoitech · 1 year

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How do you come up with super pretty design and fur patterns??

ooo this is such an open ended question theres a lot i could say ill ramble more abt more technical n specific tips under the cut, but honestly my biggest tip would just be to like, look at so much fucking furry art. looking thru other ppls art n character design is both rly fun and literally studying for ur own work. i mean id recommend looking at char design both furry and not furry in general cuz its all useful stuff and rly good to get like a diverse variety of shit to live in ur brain u can take out as insp or little things here n there for ideas for ur own design when its useful. looking at actual animals of all types and species is also useful, lots of cool patterns u can find that way and for some design in particular i will primarily be using markings similar to actual animals ive seen (at least like for example the concept of a darker mask of fur that goes under the eyes a certain way, etc). canines and felines in particular have a very very wide variety of markings u can use as inspiration. other animals too but those tend to be popular w furry art n design n r some favorites for me personally lol

for me its like, a lot of practice to get good at furry art and furry character design specifically, like pretty conscious effort since i was a kid cuz thats what i was interested in and those were the artists i admired and found as big inspiration and wanted to draw like. and ofc i am still trying to improve n learn more myself! so id say to start like.. a lot of practice, ofc looking at actual animal markings cuz u can get a LOT of good ideas that way, and big time: studying other ppls art and character design. u r never looking at other ppls art Too Much u r learning when u r having fun doing that

looking at a wide variety of dif furry styles w furry design in particular is pretty useful, especially when theyre all made for dif purposes; fursuit design vs designs for comics vs furry adoptable designs vs designs created to be animated (’animator friendly’ designs), to name a few, all r serving dif purposes n have dif goals n dif reasons for why they look the way they do.

on a more technical level of How i come up w them/make them, i sat w this one for a bit n here r some ideas i wrote down. i was trying not 2 ramble but u asked the autistic guy who is very interested in and passionate abt furry art n character design so <3 many thoiughtz under the cut so its not massively long

first is that i fuck around a LOT before i settle on smth. slap colors on shit and take colors off. if ur drawing digitally and u have a program w a filter -> color adjustments option like sai 2 u can mess w hues n saturation to get combos u never wouldve thought of without that bonus help. i tend to start working on colors/markings w digital (while i may do preleminary traditional sketches of what the character could look like before colors) cuz its way easier to test smth out and then undo it if u dont like it on digital lol. and even w how i tend to try many dif things i test around before i decide on smth i like, i always keep open the possibility that this design (if im using it as an oc) is open to being changed in the future if i find smth i like more w them

getting attached to pieces of a design and wanting to build around that is great cuz its how u figure out what u like and what is important to u w this design/character, but whats also important is being able to recognize when smth just isnt working (at least the Way ur approaching it, or maybe the character ur trying it with, etc) and u need to try a different track. u can always keep that trait u rly like and want to put on a character and just rework it into a dif design later, i do that all the time! just be content with some designs maybe just taking more time to come together and thats cool too, u need time to stew on ur thoughts n try things in ur brain b4 u test them in actual art sometimes (i mean, for me at least). sometimes u just need to sit on a character design for a while and try a lot of things before smth Clicks. at least for me! sometimes its very easy to design a character and figure out markings n stuff but other times it takes me a lot of attempts and building up a design w new ideas i am getting along the way. maybe i realize this particular design trait is cool but just isnt working on this character/design so i file it away on the backburner to test on a new character later till i find a design (or oc if i RLY like it and want to draw it a lot) who it DOES fit.

i have a pretty big stock of inspiration n ideas i have in my brain bcuz i have been autistically obsessed w furry art and improving at my own since i was a kid so i just have a lot of Interest in this stuff and have a very big like.. amnt of shit to draw from i think? again, padding out what u have to draw from in ur brain in the first place. u could also save character design insp somewhere and look thru it before u start working on a design urself, i do that sometimes! it gets the creative juices flowing for me to look at art i admire and feel inspired by before i work on my own. do stuff to get urself inspired or ur brain working in that direction, whatever way that works for u, u know urself best w it

i often keep notes of little ideas i have or things i want to try so i can try making a character design around it later, i have always loved making characters and character design so i dont rly have problems w lack of ideas or anything, its smth u just work on and if its fun u keep working on it! as a kid id do stuff like, just look thru lists of animals and then just make a bunch of furry designs for those animals, or do stuff like assign colors or plants or elements or whatever animals and then make Furry Versions of those. that was entertaining to me and how i had fun. this kinda stuff is still good practice (emoji randomizers r fun to make character design from, for example).

when im stumped w my own design or looking for new ideas to try that may click better, or when i just need a break cuz i definitely am not drawing all the time, i take a break from drawing and go back to looking at lots of art, aka, STUDYING <3 read comics, watch movies, etc too, whatever ur interested in and inspired by. i think a lot abt my own designs n ocs n stuff i want to draw and ideas i might use or like (or things i dont care for or am that interested in that i think ‘how can i implement that in a way that i DO like in my own design, how can i make this become interesting to me’) while im like, just living my life and seeing outfits and seeing palettes and seeing other ppls work n stuff, not JUST when im drawing. im playing around w ideas in my head before i actually draw, this is smth u probably improve on with just like, time and practice and gaining the ability to gauge if smth is worth trying before u actually draw it. again i cannot stress enough how important looking at a lot of other character design is; both what u like and what u dont like is going to be internalized and is going to be rly useful for making ur own designs. look at a lot of different art styles, look at how other ppl design characters. know that character design is something u can absolutely improve on, its not like, a talent some ppl have and some ppl dont, some ppl just r going to be more passionate abt it and WANT to spend more time on it and improve Because of that.

back to colors! the good thing is palettes (and well everything else abt designs) r super dependant on what u personally enjoy so theres not rly right or wrong ways to do them. liek if someone asked me for tips on how i personally often create palettes for characters Right Now i could think abt it and try to pick up patterns w my own art and then explain my like thought process abt it to ppl, but thats just what i personally like doing right at this moment, and that changes! u have a lot of room to just have fun. rly look at character designs n palettes that r RLY speaking to u and figure out whats working abt it for u or how u can incorporate how much u love how that artist uses colors n palettes n what theyre Doing there to make it work into ur own work. fun studying!

now a more personal one: typically (not as a general rule but often) my oc design is built to be drawn repeatedly and not be overwhelmingly complex to me. the goal is to get smth that looks good and interesting without actually being difficult for me cuz i know myself and know i wont draw a character thats too complicated for me lol whether id get bored or intimidated by the idea of just having to draw a whole complicated fuckin thing when i just want to doodle. for me, this means i tend to pull a lot of character design tips i learned from animation. ‘animator friendly’ kinda stuff, BUT i can typically afford to be a little more complex bcuz im not animating them. im not sure if this is still common but when i was growing up ‘good furry designs’ at least w the artists and other kids i was hanging around were often considered what was the most complex and cool looking over what was actually like, replicatable and feasible to draw consistently without spending a lot of time coloring. stuff that would make having to draw that oc for someone in a commission a complete fucking pain, but sure looks cool as a finished product so u Get why ppl go for those. but personally while i like seeing those designs i know myself and probably wouldnt buy one of those adoptables for that, cuz i know i woldnt draw it enough lol. i enjoy em and can draw some for art fight but as my own oc’s they probably wouldn’t like.. fit my own needs? i may have a much easier time drawing them now bcuz i have drawn furry art and furry character design for a long time so i can figure out what im looking at easier, but it probably wouldve overwhelmed me quite a bit when i got started (been too long for me to remember lol). and thats good to know, its good to be aware of what u want to be drawing and figuring out what kinda stuff YOU like.

adding on from above but that paragraph got long: of course having designs that r rly complex is a lot of fun n stuff im not saying dont do that im saying for ME personally a lot of my oc design tends to be centered around ‘what do i know /i/ will be capable of drawing multiple times without getting either overwhelmed or bored’. so thats a thought for me w my own designs. i also often make designs that i plan on using for like comics or smth later so i do want the design to not be terribly hard to reproduce if im planning on ‘this character is gonna be showing up quite a bit and i dont want to put a ton of work into every panel’

i will also say that like personally while markings r definitely important i DO try to mix design traits thru a more Character Design lense with a Furry Character Design lense. what i mean by that is its good to expand ur Character Design ability in general by paying attention to drawing differing body types and proportions, face shapes and like cheek/chin/etc shapes/fluff, nose and eye shapes, hair style and hair texture, etc. furry adoptables focus on creative and interesting markings on a base to make the character stand out from other wolf guys. which is also very useful to be studying and getting inspiration from for sure! i enjoy those often complex designs for sure. but for me personally i do try to take the approach of diversifying w designs (particularly w my own ocs), cuz its fun and cuz its pretty necessary when ur talking abt like, Character Design. even as someone who often puts a lot of design traits i Know i like onto many of my ocs (mohawks <3 muscles <3 etc) like w character design its important that ur characters would not all look completely the same if they switched clothes or palettes or hairstyles yk? even when putting ‘buff’ onto multiple chars of urs cuz u just like that and drawing muscles theres many ways to make a character muscular on a lot of dif body types and proportions, for example. and while there r parts of the making these characters all look different that may b harder w furry character design (like u got all these wolves and now u gotta figure out how they all look different beyond just colors!!) its definitely still like, Necessary to me personally! i assume u were asking more abt like fur patterns rather than this kinda stuff but i would recommend u think abt that when designing characters as well, its fun and it will definitely improve ur own work in general! and it is rly necessary to practice things like a wide range of body types and hair textures n styles. it will make u a better artist overall.

look at tips from ppl who do professional character design, whether its furry artists or ppl who work with dif types of media (movies, tv, comics, video games, etc). a wider knowledge base never hurts! i have always rly personally valued tips from ppl working in the animation industry so i think thats like one of the primary ‘tutorials’ i paid more attention to and integrating from +as well as my history as a furry artist and what furry artists tend to like and consider ‘good’ character design. it just tkes a lot of fucking around n building up stuff u can draw from. and ur taste will probably change with time and as u improve. theres a place for everything and ur eyes will get better at figuring out what looks good paired together, to u, over time. u can also get great ideas n tips n inspiration from artists of all sorts of skill levels of course!

anyway i hope this helps at all or answers ur question in some capacity, im sure theres stuff i missed but theres a lot of Words here but thats cuz i dont like.. think abt this stuff very consciously so it sounds more complicated when u write it out vs just doing it, which starts feeling more like second nature when u improve at it. i rly appreciate the compliment btw im always flattered to hear ppl like my designs!

#asks #anon #i hope this helps at all! gives u like SOME ideas maybe even if u discard the rest #ocs #furry #since i mentioned my own ocs n stuff here

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