#like I want to make it as detailed as the foreground/ the characters

[littledragonkana]

If you ever see me draw a background: no you didnt

#i hate backgrounds #its so much effort #like I want to make it as detailed as the foreground/ the characters #but i dont want to spend so much time on it #just spent like 20 minutes on a rough sketch of a ballroom #and it doesnt look good #like you know what it is but its not good #the perspective sucks and the lines arent parallel or straight #and things arent the same height and im pretty sure even if i redrew it 10 times its still wouldnt be much better

[juubli]

Here are some of process snapshots of this piece of Astarion in Baldur's Gate.

I am a messy painter and I often adjust and change the designs as I paint. (Mostly because I don't have the patience to do proper line art haha)

I start out with a rough sketch, I usually sketch ideas out on my ipad and move to my cintiq to work with colors.

Next I block in rough color thumbnail. I keep this part messy as I just want to figure out the value structure and the overall mood.

At this point, I have collected a myriad of screenshots and reference images from the game, pinterest, and also from artists work that inspires me.

With the references on one screen, I start to paint the details, I work from foreground to midground to background. (Sometimes I'll bounce between the depth when I get bored from painting one thing for too long)

Sometimes after I block in the colors I'll make adjustments. I didn't like how warped the perspective was getting on the building on the screen right side, so I adjusted the vanishing point and added more tiers to the design. I went back into the game and looked at more how the stairs were designed and figured it out more thoroughly with a sketch on on top.

I think sitting down and doing the details is the most time consuming part. I still want the focus to be on the character despite all the detail going on the background. At this point I'm toggling on black & white filters constantly to check the value, grouping everything in the background together, making sure the lighting frames the subject in focus. At this point I realized, I forgot to paint Astarion's hair LOL, and that the bg was getting a bit too detailed, so I used a more textured brush and painted away some of the edge details of bg buildings.

Last, I make final adjustments, and I make a overall lighting/fx adjustment folder. Adding in some noise, adjusting the contrast, color balance, and lighting over all and call it done!

Link to Print shop!

#astarion #astarionfanart #bg3 #baldurs gate astarion #baldur's gate 3 #artprocesses #art tutorial #astarionpainting #bg3art #bg3fanart #art process #artists on tumblr

[u3pxx]

eat or be eaten. there is no hierarchy involved. eating is simply the privilege of the living.

1 | 2 | 3 | one out of three dungeon meshi illustrations i did for a class! 🪽🥩

id in alt text | like this art? it's a print, here! | like what i do? support me on ko-fi!

unfortunately, i forgot to hit record during the beginning orz but this still hopefully managed to catch a good bit of the painting process

as you may or may not have noticed, i've gotten into disco elysium, and around the time i made this, i've been making a lot of portraits imitating the style of the beautiful beautiful portraits in the game and i wanted to use the techniques i learned from doing that for here!

here's also the version with text! brief said to include the title and author. the objective of this lil thing i had to do for class was to design three book covers in different styles and i hope my professor thought this was a different enough style compared to the others bc i am a lil nervous that it's not pfttt

originally it was going to be laios there bc he's like the "main" character but then i thought about the image of falin holding like, the kingdom in her hands and so i had to stop everything that i was doing and draw that immediately (the text is flipped bc my prof told me to flip the whole thing bc they were originally facing the left, i just didn't bother to correct the text lmao)

of course, had to include the gang, so there they are very tiny on the foreground DFGHD i am so glad that i thought of adding thistle too bc i just really thought that lil detail of him walking away from everybody else was pretty neat

i also wanted her hands to be covered in blood but i wasn't skilled enough to make it look good in the short timeframe i had, it looked a little too busy, whoops!

(i should also mention that this piece was a huge inspiration for this! it's so striking that it never leaves my mind oughh <333)

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #falin touden #farlyn thorden #i dont think i'll tag the other characters they are so small in there lol #sunnysidedraws #sunnysidemeshi #described #id in alt text #i havent watched it yet but i heard that the ep were falin gets out of the dragon is out now so fitting time to post this ig pftt

[echo-bleu]

The Sculptor in her Workshop, Unknown, Late Third Age, Tirion.

and

The Return of the Lost Son, Unknown, Early Fourth Age, Tirion.

This is something of a companion piece to this Nerdanel character study (on AO3). In it, she sculpts her husband and sons as she feels them die across the sea, and she waits long ages for Maglor until he comes home.

(Makalaurë, standing still in the empty space that long awaited him, makes a better marble than live body.)

I think this is the most detailed piece I've ever done. I genuinely started it as "oh, I have a very vivid mind picture of this scene, I could do a little sketch!" and here I am about two weeks and 19 hours of painting later. I'm really proud of it, though.

Please reblog if you like it!

IDs (also in alt), details and more rambling under the cut.

[ID: Two digital paintings of the same room, a sculptor's workshop. In the first, Nerdanel, a light-skinned elf woman with long curly red hair, is working on an abstract sculpture in marble. Behind her are six marble life-sized statues: Fëanor, brandishing a gem, Maedhros, with one hand missing, arms partly crossed, and after a gap, Celegorm, kneeling down to hold Huan, Caranthir, reading a book, Curufin, forging a dagger on an anvil, his arm raised to hammer it, and Ambarussa, holding each other. On the foreground right is a large stab of marble waiting to be sculpted. The second painting has the same background with the workshop and statues, with a more reddish tint as if it's sunset. The abstract sculpture has now replaced the slab of stone and in the middle, Nerdanel is kneeling in front of Maglor, as light-skinned elf with very long dark hair, holding his hand, while she has her other hand on her mouth. She is crying. Maglor is standing in the gap between the statues of Maedhros and Celegorm. The other pictures are details of the first two.]

The statues in order: Fëanor, Maedhros, (Maglor), Celegorm&Huan, Caranthir, Curufin, Amrod and Amras. Feel free to zoom in, they are each pretty detailed.

This is the first time I've drawn any of the younger sons. I did Nerdanel and Fëanor, Maedhros, Maglor and Celegorm before, each in slightly different AUs, but desiging Caranthir, Curufin and Ambarussa was fun!

Maedhros is missing his hand and has scars, because while Nerdanel never saw it, Finrod came to tell her what he looked like after Angband. She first sculpted him with his hand, though, so I imagine taking a hammer to it must have been... a specific sort of pain.

Curufin is a mix of Fëanor and Celebrimbor, they all look like each other, but I headcanon that Fëanor was more thin and wiry (though still strong), while Curufin was a bit buffer, as he focused more on large works (weapons and infrastructure) than jewellery, and Celebrimbor who was a teen/young adult in the war put up more fat once in Ost-en-Edhil, after many years of privation.

I can never settle on Caranthir's craft/occupation, but it's something bookish. As for Ambarussa, I think Nerdanel just wanted to remember them as happy youths, rather than attach them to any activity.

#silmarillion #silm art #tolkien #tolkien fanart #the silmarillion #nerdanel #feanor #feanorians #maedhros #maglor #celegorm #curufin #caranthir #ambarussa #echo's drawings

[thatdeadaquarius]

PART 2 - Genshin Impact SAGAU / Isekai: Gifts to Give Your Allogene!

ELEMENTS HERE: Dendro, Hydro, Cryo, Geo

Part 1 / Part 2 (you're here!)

☆

Sun: Gender Neutral Reader (they/them only)

Planet: General SAGAU / Isekai Stuff, Platonic Cuteness

Orbit: Headcanons-ish, a couple sentences for each

Stars: a little bit of everybody as of Baizhu/Kaveh update! including rare beloveds like Aloy! (I hope I got them all… at least the playable ones… ) Please understand that some characters are more “foreground” characters and have more screen time so I may have written some more for them because I knew them better!

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: weapons for gifts?? 16+ Older Teen Audiences Advised, light cussing

☆

& Trigger Warnings: None Known.

☆

Edit 1/1/24: Hey I expanded on this in my Eldritch Fanfic Post Part 2, but I just wanted to vet the old posts and say I did do a form of exoticism by including the word "Huangdi" throughout this.

I've since replaced it for better readability with "Emperor" but I didn't want to erase my mistake like it never happened. I'm genuinely sorry about this, I never had ill intentions by including it, but regadless of intentions that's the impact of my actions. I'm absolutely going to be looking out for kind of thing in the future/get a sensitivity reader/a beta read from that culture to check me.

I hope you still enjoy my writing and can understand.

Dendro Allogenes:

Tighnari = with some help again to put magic into it, you give Tighnari some head coverings you sewed together that have the power of Cryo in them! So now he can actually see what plants are out in the desert, visit Cyno, or just enter the desert to his heart’s content, which, yes, his tail started unconsciously wagging after you explained what it was. “Oh! For me? Well I’ve taken to avoiding the desert if I can because of… wait a minute, you say it has cryo in it? What? How does that work?? You think it’ll genuinely help me in the desert?? You made it???” Tighnari’s ears are all twitching with excitement, and he’s holding the covering (that matches his clothes/dark green) like it’s a new plant for study, omg he pulled out his magnifying glass and everything-

Collei = so she’s actually a really good seamstress, and makes plushies a lot, esp for kids! but one day you found one of her first attempts, a ragged looking sort of pale pink bunny… her first attempt at a plushie Baron Bunny!! so you decided to mimic her design (still baron bunny but with a sort of Sumeru-like clothing on it), and sew her one! You made a whole day of it, eating together, going to the best spots to sightsee (for as long as Collei was up for it/not too tired) and then gifted her the plushie Baron Bunny! She accidentally let out a small scream that startled both of you tbh, and then snatched that shit so quick lmao, kicking her feet on the picnic blanket and everything! With your permission of course, Collei then tackled you for a hug lol, she ranted about all the little details and made you tell her several times over how you made it so she could make some more in the future too! She may or may not have talked about missing Amber and teared up… but then you redirected her attention to the bunny saying, it’s like a gift from Amber and you really! (you also added a function where, if you squeeze the Baron, it’ll dish out some healing power and some heat! …Collei tackle hugged you twice for that one)

Alhaitham = what a hard person to get gifts for, he’d probably be like “thanks” no matter what you got him 😭, he means it tho, it would just be underwhelming… but on the bright side, he definitely seems like he’d show a deeper appreciation for handmade gifts! Since you learned how to make one for Yoimiya, you decide this calls for another handmade hammock (also bc Teyvat doesnt have hammocks)! You painted symbols like green crystals and geometric patterns, but also lions and a golden Palace of Alcazarzaray for Kaveh, and your symbol, the eight point star (like the four point but with flare/not like the jewish symbol with equal points lol)!! So that way he can keep lazing away, and avoid people more comfortably lmao, and also if he is going to do that, he doesnt have to sit on rocks or hard structures for hours reading, and you hope it’s encouragement for him to spend time outside/take a break and nap! (Haitham knows that’s part of why you gave him this, even if you didn’t say it, and so he makes a point to do that more often to make you happy, take the advice for his health) oh look, after thoroughly looking at your craftsmanship for 10 minutes, you got a smile in addition to a “thanks”, damn, that’s actually how you know he likes it a lot <3 :)

Nahida = you remember vaguely from Nahida’s storylines/friendship levels that she loves games, and so you collect her a nice deck for Genius Invokation TCG! You also made her a cute bag and container for it, her bag is a rose maple moth crocheted bc really this was an excuse to just make the cutest character in Sumeru look even cuter, (like this, i tried very hard ok, bc this doesnt exist yet, im shocked) The first image is most correct, (imagine the face and stuff is cuter/simpler) as that’s also the backpack part! Her eyes were so big when you handed it to her, (you honestly were shocked they even could get any bigger lol). She jumped up and down excitedly with the backpack on (ur fucking heart, just like you intended, the wings flapped around and everything <333) you are also currently working on a luna moth (the pale green moth) in case she wants it to match her outfit more! even tho Nahida insists something handmade once is enough, you can see the childish yearning in her eyes, like a kid trying to say no to a toy that’s being offered right in front of them lmao

Kaveh = pretty girls deserve pretty things, and you were definitely feeling the pressure to make something high quality enough for Kaveh, tho u know he’s sweet enough that he’d appreciate anything you’d take the time to handmake (and tbh.. it sounds a little arrogant, but ur hoping something so cared for by what he, or at least most people see as some kind of all-powerful god above the archons, will boost his self-esteem/confidence in his own worth more, or at least let him know one more person cares about him…) so you didnt make it super detailed, and you put a note on it too to let him know your not as great at that as he would be, but you made a model of the part of the teapot house you’re going to design for him! Like a sort of sneakpeak, you made a small lookalike of Alhaitham and his house, but filled it with decor like if Howl didnt hoard all the cool shit in his room in Howl’s Moving Castle, but instead spread it out, and sort of used your modern taste for layout, (not the ugly ass corporate aesthetic) and a small garden. You also made nearly all the decor and stuff something interesting (like some primogem strings, they can be pretty small, for string lights, lampgrass from Mondstadt that he’s never seen etc.) and while you very shyly handed him the model at first, he was practically vibrating with excitement!! “You made this?! Oh of course I don’t expect perfection, it looks wonderful so far, especially if this was your first attempt!!” Kaveh has like sat down, and is delicately holding it and looking around, and when you tell him it’s an actual space, meant for him, he gently sets down the model and grabs you by the shoulders, “Show. Me. Now. …please?” looking at you with very determined puppy dog eyes lol

Yaoyao = …idk what you expected. It was so obvious. A crocheted bunny backpack. brown, so it matches her, since her basket was brown, or you could leave off the feet, whichever u prefer, and anyway, Yaoyao is always doing things for others, so the little girl was so cute and pink when you actually gave her something instead! (once again, using ur old trick of making the person think u need something then shocking them with a handmade gift instead hehe) She IMMEDIATELY switched it out for her basket and has pretty much converted to using it full time! (tho when she needs the more solid one she’ll still wear it, she just alternates, esp if there’s some occasion she’ll deffo wear the bunny backpack, it’s her “fancy god-made bunny backpack!”)

Baizhu = the doctor isn’t one to talk about himself a lot, so you weren’t sure what he would like other than some new tea… but you wanted to make it yourself so while you were a little disappointed it was just a basic pet gift, you wanted to maybe put a little extra into it so maybe Changsheng will use it and Baizhu will think it’s cute! You crocheted a little pet pod/cave for her to hang out in (imagine this but a Jueyun Chili hehe) and it also has a little crocheted vine rope so the little Jueyun Chili cave can be hung from things, or even tied onto Baizhu’s apron/hold it like a purse! That way Changsheng doesn’t always have to drape across his shoulders/has somewhere to retreat! When you shyly showed Baizhu and Changsheng, he literally clapped, so did Qiqi lol (he usually does those tiny smiles… but this one was the brightest most genuine you’ve ever seen, even in game…!!) You find that Baizhu’s eyes look like that type of person’s eyes were they just look like “happy”, like there’s a little fond sparkle in his eye. Changsheng was all like “about time I got something instead of him! I’m basically an assistant too y’know! …thank you very much, my Emperor.” (if you’re NOT squimish of snake pics, pls look at this cute smile Changsheng would give)

Hydro Allogenes:

Barbara = …so even Barbara was a little hesitant at first, but came around to the idea after some convincing, and some encouragement (and showing her she was capable of it) but you basically ….may ….or may not have… found a loop hole for her being a catalyst? So, thru a lot of persuading Barbara to train with you and Childe (who also thought it was amusing to see such a young girl who’s literally a nun and a singer do this) you got Barbara to make water bombs! Like her circle of notes that float around her when healing, she sings and gestures and similar to her ult, (but like Childe’s E-skill it just switches between the two), the notes fly out and explode in the direction she sings/aims! You wanted to remind her of her old dream of being recognized, and wanting to help in battle in a more combat way, and besides, you’re sick of women getting regulated to the healing magical role in games/anime fantasy, so yeah. You and Childe are literally evilly giggling to each other in the background as Barbara sends quater notes and lines of music that explode (like how water can sharpen and cut things like Childe’s blades? Yeah he taught her that) so intensely that it cuts into the Pyro Lawlachurl, bringing it to its knees- Barbara accidentally cuts its head off as the finishing blow. While she gasps in a little fear, but mostly shock, Childe jumps up and down and starts cheering.

Mona = got sparkly eyes, nearly snatched the gift out of your hand, you made her some awesome earrings from the character banner wishes! All pretty ombre pink and blue they swirl and look so pretty framing Mona’s face, she only wears them on special occasions despite your claim of everyday use, they also help her figure out where the clearest view of the night sky each night but glowing brighter and brighter when she gets closer to seeing clearly, Mona is almost? weirdly envious?? for her past self that had to suffer thru all the inconvenient cloudy nights lmao

Childe = like anon said, a new pair of knit gloves, using the fur from the snow king boar! he’s amazed they never wear out now, and he totally uses them as an excuse to hold your hands all like “I just can’t get over how soft they are, feel them, you did amazing comrade! even better than some Snezhnayan shops!!”, exactly what you expect he’s leaning into your face and everything- 🙄

Xingqiu = an ao3 account you had a hard time with Xingqiu’s, afterall, he’s from a wealthier family, so he can get mostly what he wants, and you don’t wanna just get him another book… so you kidnapped him to Inazuma! (idk if this is canon, or happened in an event or smth I missed idfc) So, you also kidnapped Albedo for this trip, so that Xingqiu could actually see the impact his writing made overseas! While you intended for this trip to make Xingqiu feel better abt his writing, (and to help Albedo feel appreciated too, despite him not expressing much low self-esteem in his art, compliments heaped upon him def cant hurt, plus u can see him go pink too hehe) you also wanted to surprise him with a author book signing! If he was up for it, of course, which he “I absolutely, definitely, certainly am, my liege!” Kid’s practically hopping in place, as you get him all ready for his book signing (and not rlly Albedo bc he’s always fucking perfect, u dont have to do shit, even his messy hair looks nice 💀) …you also may or may not have given him some hair decorations (to help his asymmetrical cutting, not that it looks super bad, but for a change at least)

Yelan = …it’s official. You are intimidated. It’s only pretty hydro women and Ayato from here on, on your “Gift List”. Needless to say, like a few other allogenes, you wouldn’t know shit about this woman if you didn’t read her lore… it’s not a fine replacement, you don’t think, but with (lots of almond tofu, and osmanthus wine too) dev access to help you, you created another bracelet for Yelan. Inscribed (just like the heirlooms) inside simply says “You Are Not Alone”, with your eight star symbol following after (like a four star but with some flare, and also not the Jewish star lol), it glows an otherwordly gold, a contrast to the bright blues of the other bracelet. Its function is a geo shield, to protect Yelan and any teammates nearby when it’s activated, she can also leave the shielded area in one spot, so she can do her e-skill and still protect people. You’d just casually asked her to meet up with you one day in that teahouse you know she runs for intel, and when you presented her the bracelet, she held it delicately, saying nothing as she examined it, reading the inside. A small smile tugged her lips up, and she slips it on as she sips her tea, “…Well, I’ll have to show this to present this one to the family shrine, I think this more than makes up for the heirloom I failed to keep. A replacement from the Guide of Teyvat themselves… Thank you, my Emperor, for this handwrought gift you bestow upon a mortal such as me. …and thank you, for not leaving me alone.” Yelan bows a little in her seat, sharp blue eyes more softened than you’ve ever seen her, trained on yours. Her hands are together in that same praying motion that gives you the weirdest sense of deja vu…

Kokomi = so you don’t know much about her, as the it seems the character lore for Kokomi you can remember was… lacking, to say the least. Hoyo definitely plays favorites, BUT YOU DON’T!! At least when it comes to gift givining so everyone feels appreciated, you got a pretty book (handmade or bought) and got it/made it kinda small, like the size of the book in her idle animation, bc turns out that’s her diary of sorts. You know the priestess feels if she expresses any opinions that her people will just take her side, or her word as… well, a divine priestess, the weight of her title you suppose. She also keeps track of how many spoons she has! Like what things drain her, and what things make her feel better (big social interactions vs. reading a war treaty book by herself for example) So you made her a bullet journal! (here’s one of my favorite bullet journal youtubers, here’s a flipthru of her completed journal) you didn’t fill out the whole thing, just some example pages, to show her the possibilites! …you were kinda worried bc she turned away at first after delicately accepting it, and since it was just you two, she allowed herself turn back around and start excitedly chatting your ear off as she leaned in- and wow. Kokomi’s eyes really are, dreamy, like cotton candy… and they’re so much prettier when she smiles…

Ayato = …you know exactly what to do. Interrupting his busy schedule (and only actually taking one day out of it actually bother him so he can have the others as a secret vacation hehe) to come over to the Kamisato household and homemake some boba drinks for him, Ayaka, and Thoma to try! Mostly Ayato tho, you got all the syrups, the milks teas, the boba, and luckily, were able to get some help from Xiangling in experimenting in making… popping pearls! (they’re edible boba pearls that are actually filled with juice/syrup flavors and burst on your tounge when you barely bite them! they’ve very sweet, and Inazuma definitely didn’t have any different pearls other than tapioca, those squishy black pearls you see in his regular boba tea) …Ayato is literally holding your hand like he’s about to drop to one knee, this man is down bad for boba (and you) and… are those tears?! Is he tearing up?! “I can’t believe… THE Akitsu Mikami… blessed me, personally, with boba?? With NEW boba teas and pearls I’ve never even seen?! …Thank you, my beloved emperor!” Mans has quite literally gotten on his knees, but bc he’s so tall, he can still comfortably hold both your hands in his bigger gloved ones …Thoma is desperately trying to get Ayato up, Ayaka is getting onto her brother in the background.

Candace = it’s not exactly a traditional gift… but the reason Candace doesn’t wear a lot of her jewelry or finery is because of the hard job she has as a Guardian/in the desert, so you figured giving her more things she can’t even really wear wasn’t the way to go.. So instead! You gather a journal or advice from Ningguang, Keqing, Yelan, Zhongli, and all the others in the Qixing who were willing to help you, and kidnapped Ganyu for a sight seeing trip! (since u and Ganyu has that whole “in between two very different worlds” bond) You brought Ganyu because you know if anybody would be good at managing something/getting it started (like the music fest back for Lantern Rite… that I missed bc I dont understand how lantern rite works 😭😭😭 VIOLENTLY SOBS ITS BEEN 2 YEARS AND I HAVENT GOTTEN A SINGLE LANTERN RITE U GUYS-) it would be Ganyu herself! …and to also give her a break. See Aaru Village suffered from little to no economy before Candace finally negoiated with the elders to let Sumeru merchants travel into town/buy from them/sell to them, but she’s had a rough time keeping the old coots from being dicks about it since, …and it’s also hard to convince the younger generations to come back after many wanted to see the outside world because of this… So what better what to solve two birds with one stone?? GANYU!! And all the economy and business advice you could gather form Liyue! You hope that the village flourishing (and helping Candace cut down on shady merchants) would impress the older generation, yet also get more money in the town so they can dress it up a bit more (like fixing unsteady bridges, also u kidnapped Kaveh to help revitalize their cultural architecture buildings back into life/or help make the simple buildings just prettier) Now Ganyu and her are besties (Candace rlly needed another friend besides just Dehya alone to come out and see her in the desert) and the adepti was very willing to come visit her and Aaru Village to help the economy maintain its footing/run smoothly, and Kaveh also comes and works on it/checks on her/the village! …When you initially showed all the plans to Candace, saying it’ll impress the old by bringing back old designs/architecture plus interest/satisfy the younger generations to know their hometown is advancing and make it more appealing to come back to… The Guardian puts her shield and spear off to the side, she lowers her head, and greets you, bc u kinda just started rambling without saying hello- whoops- , “Salaam aleikum Qore, **I have already become the first Guardian to have been blessed by the gods, to receive this Vision was the only aid I could turn to in trying to help my village, my community… but to be blessed once more? I would never have dared to dream, let alone the Ogdoad Qore… I am grateful on behalf of myself, my village, and all of King Deshret’s people. …truly, I did not expect a gods eyes to turn favorably upon us since my ancestors’ time. Thank you, my Qore.” You just give her a smile back, she taught you the return phrase, so you hope it’s appropiate, “Waaleikum us salam.” :)

Nilou = This woman is consumed by dancing, other than keeping the peace (well, within reason apparently bc she’s okay with a coup-) but you’ve heard how hard it can be on dancers, how plenty of them have to have strong muscles to perform consistently. So, using adepti magic, you’ve enchanted this minakari you’ve painted (a type of metalwork that’s then painted by artists, on Earth countries like Iran, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan make them) like the teapot! It’s a small island that has a dance studio, and more importantly, a spa with hot springs, a sauna, and a room full of medical supplies dancers would need like salves, heating/cooling pads (using pyro/cryo), and space for stretches! Overall, just a place for her to get away from all the people and to heal her body up for the next performance, and after getting it all prepped/packed up with supplies, and showing it to Nilou… she literally had her hands over her mouth the whole walk around the rooms and showing her everything. Nilou had already been shocked you’d painted her a minakari piece, let alone all this! Like some others, she was quick to drop the formalities, and before you could even say “I hope you like it!” she was wrapping her arms around you and squeezing as tight as she could, tearing up and saying how happy she was that someone understood how hard dance can be on the body and how hard it can also be to take care of yourself, and how she can’t possibly show her gratitude- wait a minute. She’s pulled back and gripping you by the shoulders, not even bothering to wipe her eyes, before she swears to give you a dance every year with all the culmination of her work as she learns and makes newer and better dances!! <3

Cryo Allogenes:

Kaeya = horses so he’s actually a calvary captain- you actually wanted something that’d emphasize the handmade part of the gift, to really let Kaeya know somebody out there really cares about him, cares about him in the way that they’ll sit down and think of an idea and think of him, and then work for hours, sewing, drawing, crafting something just for him, to happy about. You make him a small, pocket sized photobook, and have a picture of every person who cares about him in all the slots, and near the end, from his last birthday where you gathered everybody together to celebrate, is a photo of Jean, Klee, Albedo, Sucrose, Venti, Rosaria, Noelle, Amber, even Eula, Diona, Mika, Barbara, and Mona came! But most importantly, you got Diluc to host it at Angel’s Share, and after some convincing, got him to get in the picture, you’re slightly off center, sandwiched by Kaeya and Diluc, where Kaeya is mid-laugh at the center, having just seen Diluc’s embarrassed face. It’s the last one in the mini album, and each photo has an even small message at the bottom, giving Kaeya a message from everybody, just for him. At the very end, with the group photo just before, is one of yourself and him posing together, you having taken him out roaming Mondstadt for the perfect picnic spot, just to give an excuse why you wanted a picture with him. And at the time, he found it a little suspicious, but was just flustered enough he let it slide. But now, opening and unfolding this tiny album, full of smiling friends and caring words, Kaeya gives a small, watery chuckle, you’ve left him a message too. “Take care of yourself Kaeya, because someone out there really cares about you. :) “

Rosaria = After seeing her “nun” outfit, there’s no doubt in your mind that Rosaria is yearning for clothes closer to her preferred aesthetic. So, using your knowledge of punk clothes and modern goth religious aesthetics, you’ve made some pieces for her to try! Some black pumps with metal crosses for heels, yes they’re sharp and this nice shawl with beads, and finally, a nice lacy skirt (no you did not make fucking lace, jesus christ, you’re not a miracle worker, despite the belief of some teyvatians-). All of which, wow, got Rosaria to give you an honest to god… smile. A full, genuine smile from Rosaria… yeah that made all your hard work worth it.

Eula = a book on common manners so Eula is actually great at cooking! So what better chaos to gift to her other than introducing her to Xiangling! Especially since you’ve given the young Liyuean cook recipes from your own world for her to try out, she’s been on a rampage of new things, and so what better new experience than a cook from an entirely different country? You also made a small book of recipes (look up how to make a zine book on youtube it’s actually kinda easy) from your world, different from Xiangling’s because you thought Eula would like different recipes than her. …So needless to say you were then being berated by two chefs for not sharing all the recipes lmao, tho that really just gave them reason to share recipes! Also any new spinoffs Xiangling’s already made from the initial ones you gave her, and now Eula not only graciously thanks you for the recipes, but also her new pen pal! :)

Diona = So, to prep for this gift, you forced converted the Cat’s Tail to a non-alcoholic cat cafe during the daytime, and only in the evenings do they start serving alcohol/cats put up. You also got onto Margaret for hiring a child to make alcohol, so instead have Diona work better hours, and only during the cafe time, so she’s not making alcoholic drinks either. (you also checked in on child labor laws in Mondstadt, and ran some paperwork by Jean just in case) But most importantly, you teach Diona all kinds of new drink recipes to make, like Shirley Temples, smoothies, etc. You even (once again, by getting help from Xiangling and Diluc) made a drink for hangovers, but more importantly, helped her make one called “Sober Up” which magically flushes out the alcohol out of someone’s body, so Diona can finally sneak people a drink that (while still cursed to be well-made since Diona made it) is a trip to drink lol, it’s like a blast of carbonation/electricity to the system and will typically make most people very nauseous (but since magic’s doing it, they dont need to throw up, they’re just sick feeling for an hour depending on how much they drank). Diona nearly cried after she saw the effect on hungover customers, and immediately started sneaking them into her father’s drinks, so now he’s leaning more toward sobriety most days, and after finding out what Diona did, started to talk to his daughter more. The next time you see her, and ask after her father, she just wraps her little arms around your waist, the highest she can reach, you hug her back.

Chongyun = for prep for this gift, you painstakingly, slowly convince Chongyun to accept more and more moments of warmth, like trying some spicy food that’s gone cold, but just away from people so he can be silly out in the Liyuean mountains instead, and to try and use exposure therapy to try and get him used to yin energy/warm/excitable things, rather than the inefficient method of just avoiding it all (as it doesn’t always work/deprives him of so many nice things!! >:[ ). So that way! You can finally! Take him to have fun!!! You haul him (and Xingqiu bc the more the merrier) to go swimming in Luhua Pools, go jumping off all the peaks from one to another paragliding, using cryo to surf down waterfalls, and most importantly, go to a hot springs at the end of the day! Chongyun was worried about them being too hot and activating his yang energy, but you all agreed he had been training to get used to it, so now he when he goes to try it, he just relaxes into the heat. He could feel the tug to get out and run in circles and get excited, but finally, Chongyun could just choose to sit and relax into the warmth with friends instead :)

Ganyu = if I had a nickel for every woman In teyvat who just needs a break I’d be fucking rich …Obviously, a day off. But an ACTUAL day off, with work regulated to others, and unless there’s an Osial level incident 2.0 (fuck his wife, you put Shenhe on duty to protect Liyue just in case) NO ONE. IS. TO. DISTURB. GANYU’S. FIRST. VACATION. IN. DECADES. You get her to show you the prettiest viewing spots in Liyue, and as you go, tell stories from your life on Earth, showing her pictures on your phone (from both the internet and ur photos), to show her how mortal you are on one hand, but then how different you are here, upgrading her weapons and artifacts, and most importantly, her gift, a Teyvat modified cellphone! Albedo and you had been working together for months to try and make something close enough to connect ur two worlds, while introducing him to adeptal magic and other powerful objects like primogems and wishes that you have to help power it, that way the only other person who might understand immediately how it feels to be (literally lol) caught between two worlds can always rely on each other! …Ganyu cried. Yep, tears down her cheeks and everything, “…I- I- don’t even- even know what to say? All this, telling me about your mortal world, helping me get stronger, and now- now this? I may not have much to give in return, other than my company and my bow… but should you ever need me, or even wish for me, I will hold you as steady as I hold together Liyue itself, my Emperor." Ganyu’s smile is so, so, so pretty, and all the prettier now that her soft blue hair and sweet eyes are framed by the sunset, like it’s her own gift back to you.

Qiqi = A backpack for herbs! You’ve made sure to stitch her name into it so in case she forgets it’s hers, she’ll just see her name again, and lots of little pockets so she can carry all the herbs/make deliveries, it looks a little like this but with a goat instead of cow, and some cocouts lmao, literally a “coco-goat” milk backpack! She is now the cutest person in Liyue, everyone agrees, nearly every single person who comes into Bubu Pharmacy gives Qiqi a compliment now, and Baizhu will periodically take a break just so he and Changsheng can coo at her lmao (Qiqi made sure she wrote down in her notebook in big letters next to your name “This person made my cocogoat backpack, remember to thank them during prayer times, and collect lots of fresh herbs for them”)

Shenhe = It’s kind of a lot, but really, at this point, you’ve done more for some of the others so this probably isn’t even scratching the surface of how big of a gift you can give, so why not. Going full steam ahead, you furnish her a house at the edge of town, so that she’s not overwhelmed by all the human traffic/people, but still close enough to make the friends she wants! When you first show her the dining/living room so plenty of guests can come over, and begin to tour her through it, the strongest woman you’ve probably ever known gently holds your shoulders and stops you from speaking, and turns you to face her, Shenhe’s eyes are sharp with observation as they roam your face, and then settle on your own wide eyes. Her eyes soften, and a small smile warms her usual stern face, (idc how tall you are, she’s taller, I fucking promise) as she leans down a little to look at you closely in the eyes, “Thank you for being a kind god. You did not have to be so generous to me, and yet here you are. If you ever feel like you’re an outsider in Teyvat, in any country or company you find yourself in, please, promise me you’ll come here. Come home to me?” ✨💘✨

Ayaka = You manage to get her away from her duties to take her out to Sumeru! Mostly so you can introduce her to Nilou, see her performance, and the flourishing arts that now fill Sumeru City’s streets, and more importantly, a dress you made so she could dance with Nilou + dance on stage, she wasn’t confident enough/didn’t want to dance for a crowd, so it’s just you three or just you two after awhile. Ayaka looks the happiest she’s been in awhile, more so than you ever saw in game, and it’s… almost like a breath of fresh air to see her away from what you felt was such an isolating environment, even after the Vision Hunt Decree was over. For her last dance, Ayaka does so alone, a little after the sun has set, so it’s all blue, and the stars are coming out, finally, you get to see an even better version of the dance she gave the traveler that night. She only opens her eyes at the end, to give you the giddiest smile you’ve ever seen on her, cheeks cute and plumped up bc she’s smiling so hard, and bows to you (Ayaka’s thanked you a million times, but she doesn’t need to, you can feel how happy she is just from this)

Mika = THE BOY!! One of the most boys to ever boy in all of Teyvat!! Your boy!!! :D What a boy, he nearly fainted when you handed over his gift one day, and you had to reach out and steady him, then hand him it again 😭 It’s similar to the Marauder’s Map, since you enchanted it (once again, what’s the point of dev access if I can’t make gifts for my skrunklies?) and since you don’t want it to end up in bad hands/get spyed on, it only shows itself with a phrase as well “I wish upon a golden star, to know this land as well as its player.” and it’ll show him everyone in public spaces in Mondstadt, not private homes, but like the plaza, the church, the Knights of Favonius, etc. He thanks you every single time he sees you for the map, as it’s both fascinating to him to have a proper well-drawn map of the city of Mondstadt (you copied it from the Teyvat in game map, but there were some buildings missing bc they’re more real here/more fleshed out as a irl city) but that just made Mika even happier bc he can go and map them out!! Literally can’t talk to you bc all he’s saying is “T-TH-TH-THANK-THANK YOU ALL FURST-!!!” before running away most of the time lol

Layla = An embroidered tiny pillow for her to easily clip onto her bag/fit in it, and take on the go with her! (this but the text just says “Sweet Dreams Layla ♡” ) that you’ve also added scent to, including some sleep inducing magics, so she’s guarenteed to sleep well and efficiently when she uses it! She blushed so hard you thought she was sick at first when you gave it to her, and she also used the pillow as a shield to hide her face as she thanked you lmao, and she made you a pillow in return! …even if she thinks it’s not as good as yours, both craft wise and function, Layla worked for weeks on it! …lol now ur the one hiding ur face behind a pillow (this but they’re all plants of sumeru)

Aloy = …if you had a nickel for every person you’ve provided with a house, you’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened twice… Poor damn heroine just got dragged from one world to the next, just as the last one finally was at peace, now she’s here in Teyvat, where nothing’s familiar, the entire world is set up different, people are nicer and more open here, and there’s still threats looming on its horizon. Needless to say, she is tired, and misses her own homeworld. You really wish on her behalf that Hoyo hadn’t done a crossover, but since she’s here, you figure you might as well make it easier on her. You’ve made another teapot-like adeptal magic container, so she can have a place all to herself, and given her a ticket to your own, afterall, if anybody knows what’s its like to get yanked to another world, specifically Teyvat, it’d be the travelers and yourself, and sure enough as time goes one, Aloy becomes closer with you all, and begins to finally feel a sense of familiarity, she wraps an arm around your shoulders the first time she saw you tried to make her own personal teapot place emulate her homeworld. The widest grin you’ve seen on her face, she gives you a squeeze, “It’s just been one adventure after the next, and when we started out, you were just another stranger in a world I didn't understand. But after everything we've been through, I can say this for certain: My bow is yours, now and always. Thank you for the second home, my king.” Aloy says teasingly, laughing at the face you make.

Geo Allogenes:

Noelle = goddamn when will the busy women trend END these poor souls Motherfucker, you’re gift to Noelle was to knight the damn girl yourself. No, but you nearly talked Jean’s ear off for an hour, after gathering evidence (both from eyewitnesses, and Noelle herself, including other knights and Jean herself) about why the literal fuck Noelle wasn’t a Knight of Favonius yet, and why she should be. After genuinely shaking Jean’s nerves a little, she agreed, and finally, Noelle was going to knighted along with any other potential recruits during the testing season, (as people with high reputations, which, once again, using your god status for all its worth, could recommend new recruits) but most importantly… You gave her a 5-star claymore, which, you do have to somewhat work on yourself physically in teyvat now, but your dev access lets you cheat a little (like the cooking meter on cooking dishes, you’re the goddamn cooking god when hosting guests hehe) so you also are allowed to edit it, like adding a Geo-bonus to the weapon itself! When the ceremony for knighthood was going, and pretty much all of Mondstadt came to finally see Noelle get knighted, you made a fun show of walking out where you were hiding and replacing Jean, to knight Noelle yourself. She’s gone completely red in the face, and is starting to sway a little in her down on one knee position, as you gently place the blade on both shoulders, and grin at her as you turn and pull out the claymore for her. She actually does end up falling over, pale as a ghost, whoops-

Albedo = internet access so he can become a fucking god basically the alchemist is a hard guy to make a gift for, another person you’re a little afraid high-quality handmade gifts would impress him more… so you worked hard, and eventually you managed to make three big notebooks for Albedo, one with lined paper, one bulleted, and one blank for sketches (you did the title page a decent sketch of his pretty face smiling and “For Albedo” underneath, and while that one had a picture, the other two had just the words) and you also loaned him your cellphone for awhile, and suggested the idea of a laptop to make for himself, as he already managed to get you connected to Earth’s internet again, that’s part of the reason you customized/made him notebooks, so he could research from the internet and write down any notes he wanted! …wow. you really did it. after explained all this, and leaving him notes about the laptop idea as loose paper stuck inside one of them, you managed… to get Albedo to… smile. At you. Like a FULL smile, pretty lips, wide smile, and flushed cheeks-!! Albedo caught the notebooks you almost dropped.

Ningguang = what do you get the woman that has everything? so you started to think of things that’d make an experience, and after remembering her lore about her making a chess game, you decided a board game would be good! And if you make the little pieces, it’d be one of a kind too! (she’s the type that really loves handmade gifts/as long as you put effort in it doesnt matter how “bad” it looks to her, she’ll believe it’s still good <3) …So you made a Teyvat version of Monopoly. You figured the business part would be in her realm of expertise, and maybe she could use it to play with business associates or friends, and of course, she’s a competitive woman, so she thinks it’s great, and even asked permission that a marketable version be made (one that’s not nearly as nice quality as hers from you obviously)! Ningguang also treated you very well as a thank you for making it for her, a nice dinner at Liuli Pavilion, with a useful gift of places you haven’t seen in Teyvat yet bc it’s more expansive now that you’re physically here!! You may have gotten over-excited about it… and she may have chuckled at you… and you may have gotten flustered after she rested her pretty hand on yours for nearly half the dinner as you stuttered thru and explanation of the game…

Zhongli = …what do you get the man that has everything (ningguang problem 2.0)?? Well, since you thought of something for her that was an experience a little bit, yet also one of a kind, you figured the same path for the previous God of Wealth/literally invented money/etc. would do, plus he’d the type to deeply appreciate handmade gifts too! Using a few chunks of Light Realm Core, 3 Masterless Starglitter, 1 Intertwined Fate, and 1 Condensed Resin, to make a nigh indestructible Ginko leaf hair pin, which also to replace his last pin, which while not broken, was getting old and beat up (he’s immortal he doesn’ notice these things unless they’re like magically long lasting items lol). But in a few spots are these peach beads like this instead of all white beads, like on the ring both have symbols of longevity, and are usally associated with immortals, you wanted to make something that’d also hold memories (hence the resin, from leylines) so if the erosion ever took him, Zhongli could hold the pin and see some of his favorite memories played back (like misty glittering gold projections)! When you told him all this, the materials, (he obv knew the symbols) and the intentions, and then handed him the gift, his soft smile got bigger and bigger, until you could see him small fangs (❤️‍🔥) and then he turned around? You were confused, until he look over his shoulder, his eyes flashing gold in the sunlight, “Will you do me the honor, my Emperor?” OH- you unclip his old geo cor lapis one, and pull his hair up into more of a low bun, and put the hair piece in. the golden ginko leaves chime softly in the breeze. The old god turns back to you (idc how tall you are, he’s taller, and he had to crouch a little so you could reach lol) and gives you that blinding, beautiful smile again, the kind that makes his eyes look warm and happy. He takes your hand delicately, like you’re made of something fragile instead of stars and magic stronger than any he’s ever seen, “Truly, you bless me too generously, my Emperor. Thank you, for caring for a forgotten god like me, for caring about my heart.” …Zhongli presses a soft chaste kiss to your knuckles, right on the middle finger’s knuckle, his lips are warm and so, so soft, like they’re barely even there. <3

Yunjin = a bit difficult because she’s so theater focused in life, but you figure since she does solo shows a lot, she’ll still be the one to benefit the most from your gift, you made some floating plaustrite lanterns to help heft some platforms for more stage space/cool effects! (this but a little more detail, you painted some bamboo and a few simple adepti on them) Like putting props up there or lights to aim on actors, or even actors themselves since the floating rock is steady enough! Yunjin practically squealed (which immediately made every actor in the vicintity be like “YUNJIN!! UR VOICE WILL GO HOARSE STOP-”) and gather the whole troupe to thank you! But she especially told you that although she already intended for you to have front row seats every time you came to see her plays, she especially wanted to get some stories from your life, or even just your favorites from Earth for her to perform for you!! (she even suggested that one of the platforms could be your special seat, like an opera box seat lol)

Itto = you know that belt buckle he wears that’s just an Oni head? Yeah, you made him a second belt but with a onikabuto beetle as the buckle instead! (kinda like this) but a small enough it’s not inconvenient and poking his stomach, which you definitely got a Inazuman blacksmith to help out, you mostly painted it, and when you show Itto the belt, mans literally just wraps his buff arms around you like a hug but then just starts spinning you rapidly, and lets out the highest pitch “EEEEEEEEEEE-!!!” you’ve ever heard him make (and you’ve given him a few trinkets before, so this is a new record wow). No, it doesn’t matter to Itto how much you weigh, have you seen his abs?! He says as he’s still got you a little off the ground, and is now walking away with your limp body and wearing his new belt, “This, and a proper meal to thank you are the bare minimum, my wonderful emperor! Come on, the gang’s already there anyway, you gotta try my Granny Oni’s food, and I’ll make something too! My best, most special, sandwich, Way of the Strong!! Y’know, because if anybody deserves it, it’d be the strongest, and sweetest, you!!”

Gorou = since teyvat isn’t exactly the pinnacle of advanced civilization, though there are some advancements sure like the Kamera, there are still a fair amount of things that’re just left up to locals to produce and make using whatever process they’ve got, regardless of efficiency, and one of those is soap. Yep, soap. Earth is more advanced when it comes to beauty products, but also hygiene products, and Gorou has a hard time maintaining his tail he’s said when he’s stressed/overworked. So, you used some knowledge from your interdimensional smartphone (love u Albedo) to find a homemade recipe to make soap! (…for dogs, but you don’t know if he’d find it offensive… so you don’t tell him LMAO) and you even made it a cute shape (just so when you handed it over, he’d open it and of course, go all red all the way down his neck even, hehe, (he secretly liked it)

You towards all of Teyvat, except it's not even their birthdays (idk if u want it to be it can)

☆

PLEASE LET KNOW IF ANY LINKS/PICS ARE INACCURATE FOR A CULTURE/MISLABELED ETC.

Me after writing all this:  _」(´ཀ`」 ∠)__

… so I may have hyperfixated a little too hard on this one.

Did the OG asker want this? …probably not…

Did anyone ask for this?? …no.

…did I do it anyway….…yes.

…sorry?

(I promise I only thought to do this because there are so many characters left out in favor of the more popular ones for most SAGAU posts, and bc i never want any of my babes to feel any less loved than any others if I was actually there in Teyvat… you get… this mess.)

sorry!

☆

Safe Travels,

💀♒

☆MY BELOVEDS☆

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche

#wow #im so sorry #i just wanted the lesser written abt characters to be here #did i hyperfixate bc i like giving thoughtful gifts and i love my allogenes #maybe #debatable #perhaps #YOU CANT JUDGE ME I DID THIS FOR YOU #genshin impact #genshin sagau #sagau #anon if ur out there im so sorry #genshin isekai #genshin imagines #gender neutral reader #genshin impact reverse harem #genshin impact sagau #genshin x reader #genshin fluff #genshin platonic #genshin poly

[st-hedge]

technical question - you probably get this a lot do you have any tips on coming up with a whole scene including the environment?</3 and what's your technique? you're litterally so skilledj

Yo thank you!! I was trying to come up with an answer and then I re-read ur question and I realised u said ‘including the environment’. When I think ‘whole scene’ I usually think that means a big ol environment with a tiny person slapped in the scenery somewhere. So I apologise if this turns out a completely useless answer djdjdjdjdjd

I did a little flow chart of how I usually do thumbnails and how much adjusting they go thru before I commit to a painting

I first try to find colours I like and the I just slap on the canvas what I have in my mind if I don’t have a reference (eg. Blue mountains, foothills, lake, and grass in the foreground). It looks shit so I start adjusting to make the picture flow. Usually for me that’s decided by angling the picture to make u look where I want u to (eg, the middle of the painting down at the water)

After that the picture usually still looks flat so I try to force the angle a bit more. Alas, warping. Then I reframe the picture again before adjusting the colours

When I’m thumbnailing and trying to come up with a scene the small details and the character are an after thought. I plonk them in to compliment the scene. Again usually that’s decided for me by how things flow together, the angles and the lines (eg, trying to make sure the little person doesn’t look decapitated by the line of the mountains)

#ask hedge #ANGLES

[transgenderer]

Okay so obviously the gaylors are kind of stupid but I think they're by accident doing something kind of interesting, insofar as they're reading a person like a text, yknow? On some level a celebrity is meaningfully a fictional character, (this is old hat) who is based on but meaningfully distinct the actual arrangement of atoms out there referred to as Taylor swift. And like, you can read a character however you want, whatever makes them most interesting. Like any character "franchised" the way a celebrity often is there are varying levels of "canonicity", but I think the gaylors make a good choice in foregrounding the texts "authored" by this character, as they're the elements most carefully designed to reflect what the actual author (who is in part but not totality Taylor-the-flesh, authors include cowriters on songs of course but also publicists, etc) wants the reader to understand about the character.

And like, if you find the character implied by this collection of texts more compelling if you imagine said character as gay, that seems reasonable! Surely here of all places we can recognize that many texts are more compelling if you consider possibly unintended ways of reading the characters, esp re:sexuality. I mean, I personally don't care for her music but it's kind of an interesting interpretive tool right, like, okay, we have some body of works by some physical author, and we also have this other figure in our head, the author implied by those works, and we can try to make that character square with the biographical details we have about the author but we don't have to actually, we can reject that entirely and write analyses of what's implied by the text itself and no more.

[cheseely]

Hi, I'm sure you get this often but I really love your recent genshin artwork, do you think you could explain your painting process? I love the colouring effect in that piece especially. Thank you.

Thank you so much! I got a few messages like this from my previous piece (thank you guys for the staff pick & blaze btw, I really didn't expect all the support😭) so I thought I'd share a bit of my process below as thanks.

I always do my lineart first because it feels less daunting to me when applying colours. I will do some rough colours first so I can easily adjust it to my liking.

Next, I make sure to separate each character into different layers when I clean it up. I like to work one character or object at a time, it's less overwhelming for me that way, and I can use clipping masks for ease of rendering.

I'll usually apply some adjustment layers on top of the base layer for shadows and highlights. When I say base layer, I just mean a layer of the colour without any effects.

I like using 'hard light' for shadows, and 'screen' for highlights, but you can really use whatever clicks with you.

Rinse & repeat this process for every character in the illustration. Note that I make Furina the focus so everything behind her will be less rendered than the elements in front of them (Neuvillette is a lot less rendered compared to Furina, and the painting in the back barely has much shading).

Once I render out each asset in the illustration and add shadows & highlights to my liking, I then to merge foreground/ midground/ background elements so I can make the overall illustration clearer to read. I don't want it to feel messy or overcrowded, and I think it's easy to get tunnel-visioned in small details and lose the clarity of the entire illustration.

Make sure to zoom out constantly and make your illustration B&W to check the values to see if the drawing is clear.

I created a simple S curve with the values for readability, and have the foreground elements have darker values & contrasts.

As for the BG, I wanted to add more textures into the drawing, particularly the painting in the back. Here's an image of it when I only added in the base colours.

I use the smudge tool to create more texture once I fill in the base colours. Since I don't really 'paint' anything with the textures in, I just put in the base colours and take a textured brush to smudge it. However, over-smudging can lose the painterly texture I want, so I usually smudge vertically or horizontally in a single stroke to create a sense of movement.

Another thing to note is that I only textured the BG, I thought it would help it blend into the background a bit better. I usually wouldn't do this for the foreground because I want those elements to be clearer.

At the very end, I tend to spend a fair bit of time just fiddling with more adjustment layers, various filters (such as blur, or noise), or liquify small details to really finalize the piece. Just vibes...basically this is me

Anyway, I hope that was helpful & it made sense!! Feel free to message me if you have any other questions & I'll try my best to answer! I might've glazed over a lot since I didn't wanna make this too long.

#anon #ask #tutorial #art tutorial #genshin impact

[thedustyleaves]

hi bendix! any tips for drawing/ lighting backgrounds? yours are so gorgeous and cohesive, is there anything specific you think about when planning the layout and props?

Thank you for the question! I'll do my best to answer it, but if something doesn't make sense, feel free to hit me up with some follow-up questions, because sometimes I just end up rambling, hah!

There's a couple of things I keep in mind when I do my bigger illustrations. I always want certain things or characters to be in focus, so for my cowboy illustration, I wanted the four characters from my comic to be the main focus of the piece. I used a couple of different techniques to emphasize this, whereas one of them is lighting.

The background is overall a lot darker and has more contrast between dark and light, than the foreground. To further separate the group from the background, I used the window in the back to add a rim light (that honestly makes no physical sense but it looks neat so...), to make them feel more cohesive as a group.

The second thing is balancing the amount of details I put into it. While there is a lot of stuff, the background has broader, bigger and clunkier shapes than the group in the foreground does.

To keep the feel of the details to a minimum, I kept them within those shapes, so the paintings still feel like single boxes, with stuff in it.

This helps the foreground pop with all the smaller details I've added there.

The next thing is colour. The overall colour scheme is very reddish and brown, but to connect the four characters in the foreground, I added blue to them.

Kain, Christie and Dakon all wear bits of the blue and Raki is holding playing cards with the same blue, while his entire outfit is tinted blue-ish, so even if it's black, the cold tones match with the blues.

This also puts them in contrast to the background characters that are exclusively red/brown and stays within those colour groups.

The details on the table are only 3-4 colours as well; I like to keep my palette to a minimum so the things I want to stick out, actually stick out, and so it doesn't get too busy.

The final thing I like to do, is direct the gaze of the viewer, and use contrast in shape and gestures.

The background and the background characters has very straight lines ...

... whereas the foreground characters are more curved by leaning towards each other, and by sitting around a small round table, that forces them closer to each other as well.

To further direct the gaze of the viewer, I use the eye-lines of the characters. We tend to follow eye-lines in pictures, so I always make sure that my background characters (or some of them) are looking at the thing I want to show off, and that the main characters especially are doing the same thing.

When all is said and done, whenever I start a new illustration, I can basically picture it in my head because I have hyperphantasia. When I sit down to draw, I nudge things around until the idea fits as an illustration, so don't be afraid to just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks. Winging it will take you far, hahah!

I hope this was somewhat helpful :)

#asks #tutorial

[thoughtfulchaos773]

Seven Fishes and The Timer Part One

Writing this took me a while, and I go back to it occasionally because it's such a chaotic episode. I've listened to so many timers ringing that now I question if it's real. So, this post is heavy on scene analysis. If you like this type of shit, read on and enjoy.

Another note: This post is really dedicated to my sydcarmy folks. Studying this episode confirmed how detailed Storer, Calo, and Senior are in making this show. They are genuinely thoughtful creators, so learning this episode affirms that we're not imagining Syd & Carmy's relationship being the center of this story. For time plays a theme in The Bear.

Time serves a particular purpose in this episode; we can't escape the ringing in the foreground; it's a humming of sorts, but when it sounds off loud and clearly, it becomes its own character in The Berzatto Home. The ring is loud and clear only with dialogue and meaningful action. This dialogue and action lead us to unresolved issues that later hit a nerve at the table and the rest of the season- time guides us when there's an emotional shift in the story.

I'll consider this added pressure of time as the beats of the episode.

What are beats?

A story beat is a shift in the narrative. Story beats can be emotional turns, incidents or events, actions, reactions, or realizations. They can even be slight shifts in narrative tone or a character's emotional arc. Essentially, beats are small moments that move the story forward.

An important note for Fishes: We only get a break from the timer during moments that establish the relationship between two characters.

Let's take a look at the timer:

1. "It's fucking Christmas, why would you say you didn't wanna come back?" "Whatever. Okay." TIMER

The emotional shift: Resentment. This is the second moment of tension between Mikey and Carmy, along with a realization of Carmy's truth that he wants to keep his distance from his family. It's a moment of hurt from Mikey. This exchange of dialogue is the emotional shift of the story, and time is giving us a break from Mike and Carmy's tension.

2. Donna Calls Richie in the kitchen TIMER . A beat change where Richie enters the kitchen- time tells us it's a shift in the scene and an introduction to Tiffany and Richie's relationship.

3. An Action Beat: TIMER tells us it's an unresolved issue and It's a break (for now) of viewers having to pay attention to Tiffany and Richie- we'll learn more later.

The TIMER also serves a purpose as it guides us to Natalie.

4. Natalie pours out the alcohol as the TIMER goes off. This is also considered an action beat, moving the story forward as we pay attention to Natalie's role in the family.

5. Uncle Lee & Move the Fucking Pot:

We hear the timer distinctly in this scene twice. One is when Lee is introduced to the story, and the second time, we listen to it loud and clearly at the start of Donna demanding Carmy move the pot; this is a change in the story as Donna's first pile-up occurs. This scene tells us two things: One, that Lee will play a vital role in the episode and The Berzatto family, and two, we're watching just how bad Donna's anger could get.

The timer is not just adding to the chaos in Fishes; it's guiding us through the story.

This is it for part one- take a look at part two.

#long post ahead #the bear meta #the bear 2x06 fishes #the moments of connection is like sydcarmy #carmen berzatto #mikey berzatto #natalie berzatto #richie jerimovich #donna berzatto #uncle jimmy #uncle lee #sydcarmy

[redslug]

Denoiser wisdom

Since a lot of people showed interest in my workflow of using SD like a renderer for existing sketches, I'll be sharing the little tricks I find while exploring the capabilities of SD with Neuroslug. Read the inpainting post to understand this one. When inpainting, the model takes into consideration what is already in the area it regenerates and in the areas around it. How exactly it'll follow these guidelines is determined by denoising strength. At low values it'll stick closely to the areas of color it sees and won't create anything radically different from the base. At high denoising strength it'll gladly insert colors, shapes and silhouettes that weren't there originally. Basically the more you trust your sketch the smaller your denoising strength should be. It doesn't mean you won't need the high denoising at some point. Let me explain it using yesterday's artwork. It all starts with a rough sketch.

Since I have a particular composition in mind and want it to be maintained, I'll be using a low denoising strength to fully regenerate this image.

It means that the algorithm won't have enough freedom to fix my large-scale mistakes, it's simply not allowed to change the areas of color too dramatically. So if you want to do this yourself make sure to set the image to black and white first and check that your values are working and contrast is good.

To make sure the result isn't too cartoony and flat I used brushes with strong color jitter and threw a rather aggressive noise texture over the whole thing. This'll give the denoiser a little wiggle room to sprout details out of thin air.

It kept the composition, the suggested lighting and the majority of flowers kept their intended colors too. This was denoising strength 0f 0.4. To contrast that, same base image with denoising at 0.7:

It's pretty, but it's neither the style nor composition I wanted. Let's refine the newly redrawn base to include the details that were lost in transition. These were intended to be roses.

It's here where I learned a little trick. You can mix and match different models to achieve the look you desire. Neuroslug is good at detailed moths and painterly environments. It's not good at spitting out really detailed flowers, they end up looking very impressionist which is not what I want in foreground. So, I switched to an anime focused model and let it run wild on this bush with high (0.7) denoising strength.

Nice definition, but it looks too smooth and isn't in line with what I want. Switching back to Neuroslug with denoising at 0.5 and letting it work over these roses.

This way, I get both the silhouette and contrast of the anime model (counterfeitV30) and the matching style of Neuroslug. It's also useful in cases where the model doesn't know a particular flower. You can generate an abstract flower cluster with the anime model and use the base model to remind the AI that what you want is in fact a phlox specifically. So I did this to basically every flower cluster on the image to arrive at this:

It's still a bit of a mess but it has taken me about 80% of the way there, the rest I'll be fixing up myself.

My "Lazy Foliage" brush set was really helpful for this. I'll release that one once it accumulates enough brushes to be really versatile. Now we block in the character.

Yes, I left the hands wonky since I intend to be drawing them manually later, same about the foot. There's so much opportunity for the AI to mess them up that I'd rather have all the control on these details.

When it renders the face it can really mess up everything, so I do it with low (0.45) denoising strength to discourage new eyes popping up in inappropriate places. Take note that I kept the antennae out of the mask. AI is easily confused when one subject overlaps the other.

Good, good. Wait. Why are your eyes hairy? Now, mask out the eyes, remove all mention of fur from the prompt and

That's about right. Since the eyes are all one color block I can afford to raise the denoising strength for more wild results. Same for areas of just fluff on the entire body, it's all one texture and having the denoiser at 0.6-0.75 is beneficial because it's going to add locks, stray hairs and other fluffy goodness. Just make sure to not make the mask too tight to the silhouette, it needs some space to add hairs sticking out.

With the skirt it was back to really low denoising. The folds I blocked in make sense with the position oh her legs under it, so I didn't want it to be lost.

Lastly, I drew in a flower that she's planting and ran over it with moderately high denoising to make it match the surrounding style. Ignore the biblically accurate roots there, I'll fix them by hand.

One last pass over the whole thing in Procreate. I draw the hands and add details such as the round pseudopupils, face ridges and wing markings to keep the character consistent with the previous image of her. And a bit of focal blur for a feeling of depth. Phew, even with generous use of AI this whole thing took an entire day of work. In the end what determines quality isn't the tool you use but the attention you choose to pay to finding inconsistencies and fixing them.

#neuroslug #ai assisted art #stable diffusion #anthro #moth #tutorial #I guess it counts as a tutorial at least #what are these long posts even #slug's experiments

[sanctus-ingenium]

u guys wanna see more WIPs... similar to the last post, here are Some WIPs

all of these were started in sai before going on to procreate. before going back to sai again in the case of the strength card

so Blue Sky/Out Of Time... yeah it’s extremely self-explanatory, it’s very obvious what this scene depicts and i’m sure everyone gets it (this is a joke i’ve had multiple people dm me asking wtf this even is). the one element that absolutely NEEDED to be there was the LED digital clock with a bullshit time on it, and i decided to replace it with an AIRE warning sign instead and put the LED readouts in the bg. the warning sign in this setting serves the purpose of informing ppl when there are hostile faeries around. i knew what the colours would be from the beginning, but it took a bit for me to realise what sort of shading style i wanted (it took forever). but i did know i wanted to contrast the very sketchy black void against the cleaner and almost cartoony/comic book style rest of the drawing, to emphasise the fact that the foreground sky and background void are made of two very different things. again i used a colour shifting brush to quickly make all the shards of sky different colours, but originally i planned to have some of the shards be dark or night time (with stars or the moon etc). unfortunately it didn’t work, it was too dark and pascal got lost against it.

My Eyes Are Up Here is pretty obviously the exact same scene with the same character, in the same field, but with a different sort of atmosphere. i sketched this in sai then did the final in procreate. originally it was going to have a black background

i really like this version tbh but the blue works better. i think he looks good against dark backgrounds where it’s kind of hard to see wtf is even happening there

so about the neon signs..... i’m well aware that the sketch has way more promise than what the final ultimately was, and that’s because i found that i didn’t have the technical or artistic ability to pull off the complex neon signs like i wanted to. i couldn’t get it looking good enough so i had to scrap them. but these signs will be back, i want to draw them properly and do them justice. the gif was unplanned too but i thought it would be fun to have the flicker be very intermittent so that if you scrolled past it you might not even realise, or you’d have to stick with it just to catch it looping. i used GIMP to make the gif and change the frame rate, and this actually took a very long time because i had to preview it over and over. anyway if you WERE to get lost in the púca’s field, in this story, you would see neon signs like this encouraging you to follow them.

Strength is actually the last drawing i ever made that ended with a paint-over in sai, and the oldest drawing here. as such i actually don’t think it’s representative of my current ability but i do have a soft spot for it for sentimental reasons lol. the reason for the paint-over in sai was because i drew this at a time when i still did not trust procreate to be able to place the level of finish on it that i wanted

the background took me a thousand years to figure out. literally it was so annoying that i considered scrapping it for something simpler. but the idea was for it to be a kind of fairytale-ish lost in the woods sort of look while also appearing like the blood vessels around the human heart. the branches were also supposed to be heart-shaped in cross-section but i spent so long zoomed in painting them that i forgot to zoom out to see if all those fine details were actually visible, and it turned out they weren’t. i was disappointed that i couldn’t get félix’s tattoos to look right but that’s what i get for making a character with shit tons of both tattoos and body hair. i also got rid of the foreground branches really soon because they weren’t adding anything and muddied up the readability of his pose

the swan is from a daemon au and bears no relation to my other swan characters. i just like swans a lot

#this again!

[kokoasci]

hey hiii love your art and i am astonished by your background composition, is there a process behind that or maybe tips you would share ?

hi!! thank you! this kind of like depends per piece, im not a professional artist (compsci student, so take my advice as a student with no formal art studies with enough salt to taste) but i do have a kind of general-ish process that i can talk about like with this scara piece comp:

i work pose first, composition second: i.e. i draw a pose and usually refine it before i start thinking about a background lol 😭

working general -> specific is my best friend, and I think it also helps me evolve a drawing as i go, since i don't usually have an idea for a full composition when i start (that's so stressful to me LMAO) you can see this progress here (i erased the basic guidelines though so theres no facial features, but i usually leave the face for last anyway because it helps me fit in an expression better)

by the time i have a full pose THEN ill start refining to an actual composition. this is also the point at which i decide to start putting actual effort in

then i just. fill the background with objects, usually ones that have a connection to the character or vibe im trying to fit. this is a weird example because the only things i know about scaramouche is there's some sort of like connection with puppets and he also likes his vision so i played with that idea, which is kind of where those fishes and the general pose came from. (i go into more detail about this here!)

i originally wanted to have puppet strings for those objects as you can see below but it made the final piece kind of muddy so i took them out :(

then its just coloring, which is usually what takes me the longest because im so. indecisive 😭 i like to keep depth and 3d space as the like #1 thing in my mind while coloring though and how shadows will work with that, because i think it helps a piece pop out way more

and that's how i get my compositions !! i make it seem pretty streamlined here please know it's a lot of redoing whole parts of the drawing and fixing the background/foreground until im happy with the finished result

thank you for asking, i hope this helped answer the question <3

#ask koko #you all should see the reference pictures i had to take for this LMAOOO i look so angry in them its so embarassing #but the drawing turned out well so. it was worth it #thank you for asking! #scaramouche

[minas-linkverse]

As requested I’ll share some of my comic making knowledge. Keep in mind that I’m not a professional and have been self taught when it comes to making comics, SO take my tips with a grain of salt. Also English is my second language, I dont know some words.

First of all I think a very useful thing you can do is study film, especially how shots are designed. The way film makers decide what is in a specific frame is very similar to deciding what should be in a panel, and in general improve your visual language skills.

Still, comics are a different medium and have different advantages and disadvantages to keep in mind.

Second thing I wanna share is that often there’s a lot more thought put into what is inside the frames and not the frame itself, when they should work in harmony. In the above example are two versions of the same exchange, where character A is making character B upset. The first works, but lacks impact, while the second one uses visual language tricks like being bigger and leaning over the other to show who is in charge.

Now, the first example might work better in different scenarios, it’s less about what’s always right and instead about knowing your options.

I recommend dividing a comic page into two or three segments, any more will be cluttered. Clutter CAN be very useful to drive home a joke or a sense of anxiety, but most of the time I’m guessing you arent doing that.

But what’s also important is to not necessarily use stock page layouts. There are only so many ways you can put squares on a bigger square, but you need to understand what each square can bring to the table.

I’m sharing some general tidbits, but remember that when you start learning the rules, you also got to learn to break them when appropriate! If you want to show how ineffective an attack is, maybe dont give it the flair of a cool panel. If you want to have a big panel full of small snappy speech bubbles to express a group chat kind of conversation vibe, why not! Experiment!

Finally what’s better than learning from the real deal. I’m gonna show off my own stuff here, but remember that the more varied your study topics the better. Look at manga, western comics, newspaper strips, all of it and see what you like and dont like in them! Or how they approached something you want to tackle.

Full comic here

Full comic here

Full comic here

Full comic here

I just noticed a bunch of spelling mistakes oops. That’s other people’s problem now, I can’t be bothered.... 😭 

So in conclusion, focus on making things readable, visually interesting, and have fun or smth. If you are doing things correctly, each element should feed into each other. Visual interest should help in clarifying whats going on, and so on.

PS. I didn’t include more basic tips like how to make panels that flow in the right order, or the fact that level of detail and line thickness can tell whats in the foreground and whats in the bg. Consider this more of an encouragement to study things, and less of a full tutorial.

#Art tips #Comic tips #Tutorial

[pangolinheart]

I was lucky enough to get a few slots of @needapotion’s last batch of commissions, and one of the pieces I commissioned was this lovely Dragon Age Tarot-style commission of Rhiki, set post-Heavensward. I’m in love with the result, so I wanted to share it here!  Every part of it is stunning; the colors, her expression, the many many details, and the symbolism woven throughout. I’m endlessly impressed and delighted by it! More details I wanted to gush about under the cut.

Z’rhiki was very close to Haurchefant, and his death hit her hard, so much so that once the immediate aftermath had been handled she genuinely considered leaving the Scions. It was a pivotal experience for her as a character and I have a of feelings about it. Its’s represented really beautifully in this piece. One of the foremost feelings Rhiki associates with Haurchefant is the warm air from the fire hitting her cold face whenever she opened the door to the main hall of Camp Dragonhead, thus the fire in the foreground of the piece, with the sensation it evokes in the background. Set against a snowy Coerthan night, the light reflecting off the illusory cloak creates a dusk- or dawn-like colorscape; endings and new beginnings. When I was making Rhiki from scratch in the character-creator, knowing nothing about the game, I wasn’t really drawn to either the Keeper of the Moon or Seeker of the Sun lore, so I decided to try to make a character that looked like the spaces in between day and night, light and dark, so the color scheme of this piece is not only representative of this period of her life, but also the broad strokes of her character (which have turned out to be very fitting later in the game...) //

Anyway this is a lot of words to say aaaaAAAAAAHFJAAF

#ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #art #commissions #miqo'te #ffxiv oc #DA tarot card #rhiki tag #heavensward #heavensward spoilers #ffxiv spoilers #haurchefant #haurchefant x wol

[gorbalsvampire]

Hey so obviously the clanbooks help flesh out the clans, but which clans do you think benefit the most from their clanbooks? Not necessarily powers, but the flavor. The details.

So this one took me a while, because I had to go back and look at the Revised edition clanbooks and refresh my memory on them. I'm mostly a Revised goblin, although Cappadocians never had a Revised clanbook so I dipped my toes into second there.

Also, for a Clanbook to be good, it has to be helpful in playing the clan, and more interested in that than delivering metaplot. This is why Clanbook Giovanni, though dear to my heart, is Not A Good One, because it's so mired up in shuttering Wraith: the Oblivion and the associated plot events. This is why Clanbook Cappadocian is bad, because it is shot through with "here to go" foreshadowing of the clan's downfall and doesn't do enough on establishing what they did in Cainite society at the height of their power.

Brujah: almost no mechanics, almost all history and perspectives. The Brujah suffer from an identity crisis - rootless between the classical era and the twentieth century, their history really feels like the history of the Anarch tendency, and their customs the heart of the movement as it is tonight. But for sheer detail - giving itself the breathing room to talk about how the Brujah work within their sects and contexts - I think this is one of the good ones despite its lack of substance. Telling that Justin wrote it.

Gangrel: this one locks arms with the Ravnos and walks down history together, embedding two underdeveloped clans in each other. The Gangrel come off better, because they're not starting from "[insert slur here] vampires" as a concept, and because the narrative voice of their book is curious and intelligent and refuses to take anything at face value. The core concept of the Gangrel is "Wolverine with fangs" - I'm being reductive, but "brooding animalistic outsider, bad team player, best there is at snikting all the bubs" - the point is that dragging Gangrel into a coterie with anyone else and making them functional involves dragging them away from what their "clan culture" is all about.

Weirdly, I think this Clanbook does more for the Sabbat Gangrel, simply by running through the Paths and showing how the Gangrel can integrate with them. Bloodlines are mostly stupid, mechanical impact for animal flaws reifies the clan curse in a good way (kinda similar to the contemporary Malkavians). There's a lot here but none of it makes me want to play a Gangrel, for some reason. I suspect it's that the core fantasy isn't really one that interests me, and if I'm going to play that hard against type, I'd rather start from a different base altogether.

Lasombra: the throughline of Lasombra history delivered through a series of in-character lectures is a neat device, foregrounding the contradictions better than usual. Likewise, the detailed depiction of Lasombra Embrace and education protocol and internal factions builds explicitly and confidently on the corebook's limited vision and their role within the Sabbat. The dot by dot breakdown on Obtenebration teaches you how to play one systemically and how to ST around this overtly supernatural Discipline and more of the books need to do that. One of the better suites of premade characters, too (and the Student of the Abyss is a dead ringer for my first girlfriend). It's been a long time but I think this is the book that made me like the Lasombra as a clan rather than a power set and story function.

Also:

Sabbat are not wholly their own masters. No vampire stands altogether free to choose his behavior, thanks to the Beast and the fundamental requirements of vampiric survival. The Sabbat makes matters worse with its beliefs and practices, which repeatedly push participants into acts that erode conscience (and Conscience). When you play a Sabbat vampire, you take on a distinct set of challenges. It’s not necessarily more “adult” or “sophisticated” than any other sort of vampire, nor is it automatically more “juvenile” or “indulgent.” Sabbat exist within tighter boundaries than most independent or Camarilla vampires. Not everything you’d like to have your character do, or that he would plausibly want to do, is actually within reach.

Because some of us really do need telling.

Malkavian: for sheer style, for refuting the kookiness and fae nonsense and artsy layout of the second edition volume, for actually being substantively useful in playing the clan, this one makes the grade. Has one of the best metaplot beats with the antitribu's grand justification for mass Embrace and thinning the blood. New Derangements, better than the ones in the core book if I'm honest, especially the specifically vampiric ones that move away from "playing something straight out of the DSM."

I'm going to mention powers again here though - I wish the Revised devs had caught on to the idea of alternative powers at lower level, as some of this stuff (like Babble) shouldn't have "be seventh generation, i.e. not a starting PC, i.e. probably having done a diablerie to 'level up'" as their prerequisite. Weakest part. Also, I love the Moirai. Favourite brood. Probably sold me on my love of brood coteries.

Nosferatu: I like that a Nosferatu calls out Kindred history on its Eurocentrism! And much like the Gangrel, this book gives you some hooks to hang your clan weakness on - Merits and Flaws that reify aspects of the Nosferatu aesthetic. I don't think these are all necessary, but they are cool. A similar breakdown of Discipline usage to the Lasombra, again showing and telling how to Nosferatu as well as what is Nosferatu. That's the distinction with the good Clanbooks, I think - they remain focused on playability and using these ideas rather than just telling you about cool shit. I want to play a Nosferatu after I've read this book.

Dishonourable mention: Tremere. The Tremere Clanbook doubles down on a central bugaboo with the clan - if their hierarchy is sevens and sevens and sevens all the way down, your city should be crawling with Tremere. To have all these internal agendas and subfactions represented in a meaningful way - same. I'm aware of Grician bias, I hate the 1:100,000 "rule" with the force and fire of a thousand suns, but this book really needed to show you how one or two isolated Tremere work and it fails to deliver.

Tzimisce: I don't like how overcooked this clan is, with its Koldunic Sorcery and its Old Clan and its revenant families and its two different versions of "your signature discipline is a disease" that are both high concept shit far removed from Playing Your Lil' Guy - but that material undeniably exists and if you want to refer to it... well, isn't half of it in the Sabbat guide? I don't know where I stand on this one, but Tzimisce fans generally want as much as possible to chew on and there's More In Here.

Ventrue: Much like the Brujah and the anarchs, a lot of what the Ventrue have going on under the hood can be read "as above, so below" with the Camarilla as a sect. To know one is to half understand the other. The Ventrue codify the unwritten social rules of their sect, or rather their sect unknowingly imitates the code that organises the Ventrue.

The difference, as ever, is that the conservative and hierarchical side of the coin is much easier to detail than "imagine your way out of authoritarianism", and as such Clanbook: Ventrue has a great deal more direct, didactic, actionable material in it than the broad and vague concepts of the Rabble. Titles, organisation, spheres of influence, clear lines through the medieval to the corporate: read this one.

There is more to the Ventrue than you ever imagined - so much that they almost fall into the same hole as the Tremere do, but they don't have the hard number for the brain to latch onto and worry at. Even now, I'm describing this very good and self contained Clanbook by comparison to its peers - that's how the Ventrue get away with it.

I'm not just saying this to blow smoke up @biomechanicaltomato's ass, either. It's genuinely one of the best books; I think only Lasombra and perhaps Gangrel and Nosferatu are on the same level, and in very different ways.

#vtm #vampire the masquerade #clanbooks #meta #opinion post #thanks for asking! #ventrue #lasombra #gangrel #nosferatu #tremere #malkavian #tzimisce #brujah