the prophecy by taylor swift is so leo valdez after his mom died when he was seven? eight? after none of his family wants to take him in. after his aunt rosa literally calls him a monster and not so subtly blames him for the death of his mother. as he’s still a child. after no foster home ever puts in the effort to care for him so he’s sent to a wilderness school. after he finally finds a best friend, one person who gets him, only for all those memories together to be false, implanted by this goddess who doesn’t care if he lives or dies so long as he fulfills his purpose. after he third wheels his first quest, losing an almost-sentient companion in an explosion. after he seventh wheels another historic quest. after he still loses people he cares about, half those people not sure if he cares more about his machines than them.
so of course he’s going to fall in love with the first beautiful person who shows interest in him without him ever falling in love with himself first. he’s been fighting for someone to love him all his life. he wants someone so desperately to see him for him, but he hasn’t seen that side of himself yet. his character isn’t written to the end of his story. he needs to find peace with himself before he finds someone who can love the fully realized version of himself.
I've seen some people say some character art downgraded from 1 to 2 and while i agree about some poses not being as dynamic and some of the art being unfinished (early access tho) and the colors not being as dope, and some of the gods feel different
but i wanna specifically ramble about Artemis best gurl for a bit
this is my girlie in Hades 1
I've been thinking about the differences from 1 to 2, and I think in here, she's presenting herself as the Goddess of Hunting.
she looks a bit menacing, she looks sharp, she looks like she just got here, the angle she's looking at you it's not very direct it's like she's measuring you from head-to-toe kinda way, she also has that greenish light which feels kinda like an aura. she's down to business!
and when we look at her in Hades 2
She looks confident still, and you can see her weapons just as clearly, but her pose, and her smile? she's like, laid back, she's not quite posing to create an impression, she doesn't have that greenish aura, she's there in the flesh, she's not really presenting as a goddess in particular... she looks more welcoming, a bit softer looking... she looks like she's just stopped for a chat, while in 1 it's like she's in the middle of something
and when you stop to think about it? she is. she is just chatting with her friend. Melinoe is her friend, she called her Sister.
We're much more closer to her as Melinoe than we were as Zagreus. bc while she does become friends with him in H1, she's more of a long distance friend. we were building our bond with her in H1.
But here? in H2? she's known Mel for years... she kept it a secret from other gods... she's got those accessories thingies with the 4 colors. not only are we close friends we even got a friend bracelet thing going on with her!! Melinoe is a precious friend to her from what i've seen so far.
Why would she pose and be a bit distant with her friend? we know Artemis is a bit closed off from people, she prefers being in the woods with the animals than other gods i recall her saying that to Zag, but Mel? Mel is a dear friend, she sounds much more casual from the get go with her than with Zag because we have a strong bond with her already
In Hades 1 we just got to know her, so she's more closed off, she is more business like, she is distant, she is The Goddess of Hunting
I drew him with his hair loose for two of the doodles because it gave me trouble when it was tied back shhhhh
Also??? The weird little stray pieces of hair that just kinda float around where his hair parts??? I had to simplify them, I couldn't figure them out 😭
btw, i firmly believe that if Jon and Martin had met under different, more normal circumstances, they would've gotten along like a house on fire
literally the only reason they were at odds was bc Jon was already stressed about being underqualified for the head archivist position, and that was exacerbated by the Dog Incident and the idea that Elias was waiting for him to slip up & had assigned Martin to the archives to keep tabs on him
hell, i think if they got along from the start, there's a damn good chance Jon would've fallen for Martin first. not by much, given; they're both the type to fall fast and fall hard, but still. (but it would probably take Jon longer to identify his feelings, so maybe it evens out)
During my mini hiatus I fulfilled my dream of visiting Norway! The most surprising thing was hearing Lithuanian being spoken literally everywhere. My mum and I always speak Lithuanian to each other, so it was incredibly bizarre for people to overhear us and then come speak with us, or to have waiters/shopkeepers switch from English to Lithuanian. I’ve never experienced anything like it before, and I had no idea so many Lithuanians live in Norway! I absolutely ADORED this, it made all the places we visited instantly feel like home. Despite all that, I learned a bit of Norwegian and discovered that it’s literally the cutest language. Language learning is absolutely wonderful
I HATE THE ABOVE PIC LOWKEY LOL........ its an experimental thing so thats why it dont look good
kneeways heres the yoichi art dump as promised, and also to take advantage of that 30 image limit ive decided to also post some yoichi tweets bc im very normal about him
Hello! Currently learning blender and wanted to ask a curious question after seeing your adorable animations. How do you do eyes, in particular Susie and Nicole's ones. Their expressions with their eyes is so animated I am curious how you do it.
Hi there!! Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoy the way I do expressions! I'm assuming you mean Noelle? :D
Anyway here's a closer look at Susie and the way her eye works. I just gave her one eye and left the other one covered by her hair since it would've ended up looking goofy.
Here's a close-up of the eye and the shader nodes!
For extra morphed expressions, I make custom eyes which don't adhere to the rig. They're usually just spheres with the same shader.
Here's Noelle's eye rig and a little bit of a goofy showcase of her eye/eyebrows rig:
I used lattices to make the eyes stretchy!
I also used nodes for the pupils because in this house we love to avoid image textures. 🤭 The purple thingy is a driver, which switches between her dark and light world eye color.
Hope this was insightful and not too much technobabble. Best of luck on learning Blender!!