#still need to figure out where i want to draw the line at details...

[miiversian]

hello ultrakill community

#ultrakill #DECT #dream's end come true #ultrakill v1 #ultrakill v2 #ultrakill mirage #ultrakill gabriel #my art #clip studio paint #digital art #2024 #im trying to figure out how to draw the chrs since im not used to drawing mechanical stuff & armor #its kinda fun! #still need to figure out where i want to draw the line at details...

[vetyr]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

#aurora comic #aurora webcomic #comicaurora #art analysis #...I hope those are the right tags??? #new fandom new tagging practices to learn ig #much thanks for something to read while I try to rest my wrists. carpal tunnel BAD. (ignore that I wrote this I've got braces ok it's fine) #anyway! I HAVE. MANY MORE THOUGHTS. ON THE STORY ITSELF. THIS LOVELY STORY #also a collection of reactions to a chunk of the comic before I hit the point where I was too busy reading to write anything down #idk how to format those tho #...yeet them into one post...??? #eh I usually don't go off this much these days but this seems like a smaller tight-knit fandom so... might as well help build it? #and I have a little more time thanks to break so #oh yes also shoutout to my insanely awesome professor for teaching me all the technical stuff from this he is LOVELY #made an incredibly complex program into something comprehensible <3 #synapse talks

[wavesalwayscrash]

Hello!! If you don’t mind me asking, what’s your process for making backgrounds (if you have any process in particular!) They’re one of my favorite parts of the comic, and I’m interested to hear how you decide colors and stuff!

I sadly don't have a lot to say about this bc half the time i just raw dog the colors. I rely on complimentary colors (primarily orange/yellow and blue/purple, which is a fun secondary effect since Lain and Mariner are also yellow and blue) but if I want a very specific vibe I will often colorpick from pictures since I have a bit of trouble straying from my love of desaturated colors a lot of the time LOL.

These were some scene preps I did for a couple of later scenes! I tried to find some where I made a couple of moodboard pictures to get the vibe down but i guess i deleted all of those whoops.

as for drawing them, i don't have a lot of tips on the actually RENDERING part (i'm a very bad teacher) but here's a breakdown of how i generally draw the bgs in wac

bgs in comics are really an important aspect to me personally. the way I treat and approach bgs is to not treat them as just window dressing but instead treat them as an additional character. What is the bg conveying, whether it be a specific location, a vibe, or in terms of a den or a room or whatever, what can it tell us about the character it belongs to? I will admit I haven't done this as much as I would've liked to in WAC so far, but I hope that as the story progresses I can strive to put more life into the backgrounds. It's a little bit trickier since they are kitties living in a nature environment and not humans in houses, but I still hope to create that same sense of importance.

and I know backgrounds are often seen as "the worst part" of art, but I wholeheartedly believe you just need to figure out how YOU enjoy creating backgrounds. I love drawing them! I used to paint backgrounds for years before realizing I hated it so bad. Now I prefer this much blockier style and I love lining bgs. I highly recommend just sitting down, and doing some studies of photos of landscapes, of cities, or whatever else you want your bgs to be. appreciate the little details, figure out how to simplify them for yourself, think about the big picture of things, and it'll go a long way.

#ask #anonymous #alek talks

[brother-emperors]

how long do you typically spend drawing a comic page? I'm a perfectionist and I have a hard time keeping a reasonable working pace for comics

so I’m actually going to not answer this one (the answer is both less and more time than people think, and it depends) but instead I’m going to give you some advice on how to deal with perfectionism when it comes to making comics

the first thing is to see if you can kill your inner perfectionist, which basically means, can you get comfortable with imperfections? this is something that can be difficult to do, but it can also really take some weight off your shoulders if you can look at a line that’s a little squiggly instead of perfectly smooth and move on from it. there’s a whole page, a single wonky line, is like. fine, especially if you’re doing more than one page.

if not, that’s okay! we’re moving on to the 75%-80% rule, which is: figure out what giving 100% in art looks like for you, then find out what giving 70%-80% looks like. As a person, you can probably consistently give 80% to any given illustration, but doing 100% all the time is going to fuck you up in the long run. If you can get comfortable consistently giving a 80%, you can then decide when you want to crank it up for dramatic effect, or you can save going all in on something fun or a big project. if perfectionism is a hard habit to break, instead try it reframe it as giving a ‘perfect’ 80% instead of 100. it’s all about that overall visual consistency, baby!

comics can feel like doing seven or eight individual illustrations on a page (panels) and some people definitely tackle them this way, and that makes learning what you can consistently give without wanting to shove your hands into cement very important. If every panel is a solid 80%, the entire page looks Good (which means the entire page is working at 100% because you have visual consistency/coherency and that’s what matters)

ideally, you reach a point where you can gauge what a good 80% of what you can give looks like across an entire sequence. for me, Trikaranos is operating at 80% while Ex Voto is 70% (part of it is that Trikaranos is more demanding, while Ex Voto is more casual and vibes based, but for both I put a lot more work into formatting and lettering)

part of what can help with all of this is figuring out a good work pipeline that encourages finishing up a sequence to keep you from getting stuck agonizing on small details

a decent one is this

thumbnails > rough pencils > do tight pencils where you think you’ll need it (I do tight pencils on facial expressions, furniture if there are bodies on it, and perspective shots) > inks > colors > lettering

adjust it based on whatever your own needs are, etc.

what’s imperative to this is that you don’t do the pencils > inks > coloring stages in sequential order, but instead jump around so that you don’t burn your energy through it (in that there’s a drop in quality as you either get tired or start to rush). Jumping around lets you spread out your high energy points and it picks up the slack for when you want to just get it done, but also it forcibly keeps you from spending too much time on one specific thing. (which is why breaking it up into stages is important, instead something like finishing one whole page from pencils to colors and then doing the next one)

when I do single page comics, I usually alternate every other panel, when I do multi page comics, I’ll either alternate entire pages or I’ll do the first and last pages at the start, and then jump around the middle in whatever order I feel like.

whenever I find myself spending too much time on something, I will set a playlist that has either a 15 minute or half hour run time, and when I reach the last song, if I’m still fucking around focusing on one thing, I’ll make myself move in and return to it later. I do this the most with the inking stage so that I don’t over ink something (I find crosshatching relaxing, but it doesn’t often look good because I do too much in one place and it looks bad because it doesn’t work with the rest of the panels and then I have to start over), and then I can go back to a panel with fresh eyes later and decide whether or not more detail is necessary for the whole page to look good, or if it’s fine as is.

and ofc, the most important guideline of all: the Fuck It, We’re Done rule, which is at some point, you may look at a page and go ‘I don’t want to work on this any more, I’m tired, it’s not fun, I’ll be stuck here forever, etc’ and that’s when you put your pencil down, physically move back from the page, and figure out what the bare minimum amount of work you need to do in order for the whole page to be coherent is, do JUST THAT, and post it.

at the end of the day, it’s the whole page that’s important, not all the individual details, so try not to focus on too many small details early on, but instead go back and add them in closer to the end. You can clean up any line art mistakes that are bothering you here at this stage too.

finally, don’t zoom in too close on a digital canvas, especially if you’re doing pencils. there’s no reason for a reader to zoom in close like that unless you specifically want them too, spare your hands the agony of tiny details that won’t be seen when you upload it at viewer resolutions. I know artists who won’t go past 150% because those details won’t show up at print resolutions.

HEUGHGHHH this is so so long, but hopefully there is some helpful advice in there for you, anon

#ask tag #long post #art supply tag #like technically #it’s more like art advice but the same kind of deal #ymmv this is a very professional ‘I have deadlines to meet’ type of thing. because I had deadlines to meet lmao #this is also close to how the American industry pros go about doing it. so. spare yourself the student loan debt #and modify it away to suit your needs

[gurugirl]

hi, guru! would it be possible to get a little teaser for the bfd update 🥹🥹

Ahh sure! Why not? 731 word teaser from the next part below.

“So you don’t think I’m a bad person?”

She chuckled, “Well, I don’t agree with what you did but I could never think you’re a bad person. You can’t help who you fall in love with.”

You drank your hot tea and tried to enjoy yourself with your friend but the longer you and Paloma chatted, the more you missed Fae. No one could replace Fae. She was your other half in so many ways.

“Can I ask you a really personal question? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want.”

You shrugged, “Okay. Sure.” You had an idea of what she was going to ask based on the fact that you’d gotten onto the topic of birth control.

“Is he good? Now that I’m thinking about him like that I can imagine he is.”

You breathed out laughed through your nose and smiled as you looked down into your tea, “He’s good. Yes.” You weren’t sure how deep into it you wanted to get but you’d entertain her for a bit.

“And I bet he’s got a big… dick.” She whispered the word dick quietly.

That’s where you drew the line. You sipped your warm tea and turned your gaze to the corner of the room where someone was just taking their seat.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” she spoke, drawing your attention back to her.

“It’s okay. I’m not sure I want to talk about that anymore, though. Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

It turned out that Paloma didn’t have much to say about herself. She gave you the tiniest bit of information, where she was working, that she’d dated someone a couple of months back and that it didn’t work out, and how she was planning a vacation to Cancun. But that’s it.

It felt strange to divulge such personal things to someone who gave you so little in return. And you should have known that’s what was going to happen. She wanted the dirty details about you and Harry. She wasn’t there to be a friend. Not really. She wasn’t rude but you saw that her motivation was to sate her curiosity.

Maybe you were better off just confiding in your mother. Though, she never asked you things about how sex was with Harry. She always only wanted you to be happy and doing your best.

And it would have been fun to discuss in detail how good you were getting it with Harry. And if Fae weren’t his daughter you’d do that with her. Tell her all about how insane his body is, how strong he is, how big his cock is, and how he eats you out almost every day. You’d totally brag about him with her if things were different. But instead, you were stuck with Paloma who you didn’t want to give too many details to. And besides, you and Harry were still healing. To talk about how he was in bed didn’t seem right. Especially when you didn’t know who she was going to tell.

You stopped at the grocery store on your way home to get some things you needed and you picked up one of those cheap grocery store flower bouquets. Harry had stopped having them sent when shit hit the fan and he moved in. You didn’t know if it was because they were so expensive or just because he hadn’t thought about it what with everything going on, but you figured a small bouquet might feel nice to have in the apartment.

But when you pulled into your building’s parking lot you saw, what looked like Mrs. Styles’ car parked at the front. Of course, perhaps it was someone else’s, you were a bit paranoid lately. You always had your eyes roaming around just in case you accidentally ran into her or Fae.

With one arm occupied by your grocery bag and your other hand holding the small bouquet, you slowly walked up the steps toward your door and thought, maybe it wasn’t Mrs. Styles. Perhaps it was actually just someone with a car like hers. Plus how silly for her to confront you. What good would that do anyone?

“Y/n. I’ve been waiting for you.”

You heard her voice before you saw her and then felt her pull your bag from your arm, “Let me help you. Looks like you’ve got your hands full.”

#ask #bfd!harry #teaser #best friend’s dad Harry

[erazonpo3]

Erazon's Characterisation Essay (Part 1 - Cynthia Edition)

General preface; This is me snowballing on a thought I had earlier about canon v fanon trends given that it's a pretty evergreen topic. Without getting too much into the subject itself, I made the point that you can use the source material as a starting point for analysing characterisation, but in a lot of cases it's highly interpretive; using Pokemon as an example, most of the non-player characters exist to enable the player's autonomy throughout the game's storyline, and only a small handful have their own detailed arcs and backstories.

Therefore if you want to build on characterisation for them for transformative fanworks, you only have a handful of dialogue lines and some environmental storytelling that borders on olympic levels of mental gymnastics. Things like backstory and character motivation needs to be invented, to which end the concept of 'canon' characterisation becomes pretty insignificant in comparison to the story you are trying to tell, and whether or not that characterisation is thematically appropriate and compelling. Everyone is going to have a subjective opinion about the 'essence' of a character, the core traits that make them who they are, and how integral those traits are for it to be a 'canon' or 'fanon' interpretation.

And yet there's still ways to analyse the games to draw some conclusions that aren't always obvious straight away.

I'm going to go into how I draw characterisation for Cynthia for Way Out, but keep in mind that I don't consider my characterisation perfect or the One True Depiction To End All Others etc and so on and so forth. There's things I need to discard in favour of the story– adults in the Pokemon games, including Cynthia, have a pretty laissez-faire attitude when it comes to kids handling crises so that the target audience (kids) can feel acutalised as they play through the story, but it's not always what I consider a core character trait so much as a function of the medium.

I play up a sense of responsibility and duty that isn't really depicted in the games but is nevertheless an easy takeaway in order to give her character a bit more depth and relateability. And when other people take her character in a different direction, I try to keep an open mind about what they're saying about her character in their story, because their story is not a video game for children nor a webcomic, and they will need to do different things depending on her narrative role.

(I don't have to like it, but I'm no less a subjective soul than anyone else).

I also pull here and there from other sources of inspiration, one I've mentioned before is a meta-analysis of how she's treated by the fandom in general, assuming she'd be treated a similar way as a public figure in-universe. A lot of my character work is about peeling back that legendary status and asking who the person underneath is and how she might deal with the pressures of being expected to consistently meet other people's high standards, and how to balance a healthy competitive streak without it becoming toxic.

But more to the point– here's some material exclusively from Platinum that I think collates to a pretty consistent depiction of her character, to keep in mind and interpret any which way, arranged into some key traits.

She is the granddaughter of a village elder in a traditional rural town.

"My grandma has this sort of bossy atmosphere about her. I think you'll recognize her right away. Yes, I'm sure you will. She's the elder of Celestic Town"

An overlooked aspect of her character that I think holds some of the ripest potential for her character is that we know a fair deal about where her family is from, potentially where she was raised. My personal conclusions are:

It is likely she has an ingrained sense of cultural values of humility, respect, duty, and tradition. While she may not be ruled by these traits, they would influence the way she interacts with the world.

Her interest in mythology is likely inspired the mural in Celestic town, and reflects a value of heritage and history.

It's a common 'fanon' that her grandmother was her primary guardian through much of her childhood, which isn't substantiated anywhere (just because we don't meet her parents as NPCs doesn't mean they don't exist) but this idea strengthens the connection she has to Celestic town and emphasises her position as the elder's heir.

Cynthia introducing herself as a trainer and not a Champion suggests humility; she positions herself as an equal to the player as opposed to a superior.

2. She is earnest and sincere

"...The places we are born. The time we spend living... The languages we speak... We are all different. But the presence of Pokémon unites us. We share our lives with our Pokémon and our happiness grows as we all become greater than we were alone. That is why we can battle and trade with anyone we choose..."

This is a reflection of her position as a narrative foil to Cyrus; where he dismisses the importance of emotion and 'spirit', she holds it in high regard. Thus;

She sees strong emotions as the source of her bond to her Pokemon and therefore the source of her success. While it's not to say she's an overly empathetic person, I think it follows easily that is generally emotionally intelligent (generally).

I think she's self-aware about how emotional she can be too, which is to say it's something she consciously embraces despite knowing she comes across a little overly earnest (and cheesy) sometimes.

"I love the sound a piano makes. I savor every note with my entire being. It's not only my ears; my spirit hears the music it makes... Ehehe, I made myself cringe saying that."

3. She is intelligent

"I think I let myself get carried away and talked for far too long. I'm sorry, and thank you"

This feels like a no brainer (ha) but it's also easy to take someone who comes across as emotional and write them off as being illogical or not having the depth for complex thought. To me, her emotional intelligence goes hand in hand with her analytical intelligence.

Her fascination with mythology is one of her defining traits, and her dialogue is the source of much of the lore surrounding the Sinnoh legendary Pokemon.

Her pursuit of knowledge is one of her defining traits; her interest in mythology and the distant past is referenced more frequently by herself and other NPCs than the fact of her being Champion. "My big sister is studying the myths of Sinnoh. She wants to know how people and Pokemon interacted in the days of myths."

As a Champion, I consider that she's very calculating and analytical. Even without the strategic held items given to her in BDSP, her Pokemon have perfect stats and have solid type coverage. It's not something she would accidentally stumble onto.

"When you are facing a Trainer in battle, you can learn everything about them. What Pokemon they have. What moves they've taught. What items they make Pokemon hold."

4. She is kind

"I want you to keep traveling to many far-off places. I want you to keep meeting all kinds of people and Pokémon. I came all the way here just so I could say that to you!"

A Champion in this game being kind isn't really a revolutionary idea, but it's still something I consider very integral, particularly in conjunction with the prior traits; there is diplomacy and there is compassion, and to me Cynthia balances both.

She is something of a mentor figure to the player, giving them the solution to obstacles on multiple occasissions (HM Cut, the Secret Medicine), and imparts a lot of lore to them. Notably she gives them an egg which hatches into a Togepi; while this event doesn't happen in BDSP and Platinum doesn't have the Fairy type, it's still retroactively made more interesting for the fact that Togekiss' modern Fairy/Flying type grants perfect immunity to her Garchomp's Dragon/Ground typing.

Some of the few interactions the player will have with her is giving medicine to the Psyduck blocking the route to Celestic town, and then delivering a charm to her grandmother– it gives an impression that she is regularly invested in small acts of kindness.

5. Other tidbits

Every time she interacts with you as the player, it is always through the lens of an adult with a public position speaking to a child; I take it as a given that all her interactions have a slight amount of professional distance, and a formality she wouldn't have if speaking to an adult friend.

She reveals that she went on a similar journey as the player character after being given a Pokedex by Professor Rowan, which could imply she experienced similar experiences to the established protagonist journey formula.

There's a slight goofiness to some of her dialogue that suggests she doesn't always take herself too seriously. "You've seen that group of Psyduck huddled with their heads in their, uh, hands...?"

It's a pretty common 'fanon' for Cynthia to have known Cyrus in her childhood, but this isn't really substantiated in text; her dialogue towards him would be a lot colder with that context as opposed to a stranger. It's a common headcanon because giving them a history together strengthens their position as foils, but in my opinion it's equally as interesting that Cyrus succeeds as far as he does because he exists in Cynthia's blind spot- she admits she didn't pay enough attention to what Team Galactic was up to, and can only stand in opposition to him ideologically, unwilling to entertain (or empathise with) his perspective. It hints at a certain stubbornness she has when she believes she's right and someone else is wrong.

This is just what I personally glean from the text; it's possible I've missed something that somebody else considers ultimately integral. But I hope that my writing in Way Out speaks for itself in how I apply all this to her character in the story, and why I feel it's important to do so. Cynthia is the character I second-guess the most in her characterisation because she should always be recognisable, even while going through different arcs. Her values, her intelligence, her sincerity, and her kindness are all things that need to be balanced with the needs of the story; how strong she is is just a relative thing to what any particular scene demands.

There's a lot I could still elaborate on but for the sake of at least attempting to keep this (relatively) concise, I wrote all this to highlight how I try to stay on track with consistent characterisation, which may not be the perfect ideal for this character but nevertheless is the best version for my story. There's nobody I hold to a higher writing standard than myself, and I try to constantly ask myself if I'm really writing what's best for the narrative or if I can do something better. I'm not interested in the most canon depiction that exists for another story, I'm interested in what's right for my story.

And uhhhh peace ✌️

#long post #like long long #it's a whole read #but if you like reading do i have good news for you #pokemon #cynthia #characterisation #tangential enough to way out that i can tag it #way out #im also open to discussions about this because it's just my ~opinion~ and again i like to keep an open mind

[christinesficrecs]

I might be drowning in lost fic requests. 🤦🏻‍♀️ If you can help I would REALLY appreciate it. ❤️

Stiles started dating this really abusive guy, he cut off all contact with the pack, his dad Etc and the guy moves them away (maybe Chicago). Stiles eventually leaves him and goes back home and it turns out the pack and his dad have been trying to find him.

Lost River (never reached the sea) by scribespirare | 13.2K | Mature Three years Stiles has been gone. Three years, and then out of the blue he shows up on Derek's front porch, bloody and bruised and in need.

I am looking for a fic where there's the monster of the week (it's maybe an incubus?) and it shifts to look like stiles. It convinces derek to not turn him into the rest of the pack. Derek agrees just to be able to be with 'stiles.' scott i think figures it out? And tells derek that it would have slowly killed him.

Derek hates touch because of Kate and flinches whenever someone touches him. But Stiles does this thing where he never touches Derek, instead he lets his hand hover around him, allowing for Derek to initiate the contact if he wants to. Oh! And Cora’s alive and I’m pretty sure the one who notices this. She ends up confronting Stiles about it at some point. I know it’s pretty short, just one chapter/ a one-shot, and around 5,000 words. I think, I could be wrong.

i see that you've come so far [just like them old stars] by crossroadswrite | 2.3K But her big brother’s unwillingness to touch anyone, like he thinks he doesn’t deserve it isn’t the only thing she notices. She also notices how Stiles doesn’t touch him. Everyone reaches for Derek in some form or another, but Stiles- Stiles is something different altogether because he reaches for Derek but he never makes contact.

Hi! Could you please help me find this fic where Derek is an alpha but of like the whole town I think? Or something. Stiles keeps getting into trouble or losing control (or something) and he goes to stay with Derek for a few weeks to help him behave/get focused because hes the alpha. Derek helps him focus better on his homework and runs exercises with him to burn off excess energy and misses him when he goes back to his dad's. That's all I remember, sorry its so vague.

Do you know of a fixk where derek and Stiles kill Gerard together but when chris ask them about it they act surprised he did? I dont know anything other than this so sorry

Basically it's young Derek x Stiles, Derek is part of the basketball team and they end up going on like a trip for a basketball game. Stiles tags along and they end up staying at a motel (they share a room). At some point it's Stiles’ Mothers death anniversary and Derek brings him fast food back from his jog. And I'm like 90% certain that there's like a bonfire at the back of the motel and Derek brings out his guitar infront of everyone and starts singing abt his crush on Stiles.

Okay sooo, young Derek x Stiles but the hale family are still alive. There's this whole thing about them both promising to have a starwars marathon. Derek also draws a lot in this sketchbook thing, he's like rlly private abt it but stiles ends up looking in it and finding a drawing of both him and Derek. Then Derek kind of wolfs out? He like loses control a bit and is afraid of hurting Stiles. OH! And then there's another bit where theyre playfighting in the Hales' kitchen and Derek pins Stiles down and stiles gets really embarrassed abt it. And then at the end there's like a really cute line abt their hearts beating as one 🥺🥺

Hey! I hope you or your followers can help me out but I've been wracking my brain on this one for awhile trying to remember this fic where everyone loses their memory of Stiles' existence but this is where I get fuzzy on the details. All I can remember is that Stiles returns to his house and his dad threatens him because he doesn't recognize him and so he ends up at Derek's. IIRC, Derek doesn't actually recognize him either (he might reveal this right away or later?) but helps him anyhow?

Hi! Ive been trying to find this fic, it was a amnesia type fic and I believe Derek went to visit his family who live out of state, he planned on finally telling them about Stiles but hes in an accident, loses his memories, and his family starts trying to set him up on dates(?). I think some of his family were wellknown or famous or someone told Stiles about Derek going out and Stiles just assumes he'd wanted out of the relationship but didnt want to tell him. Its mostly the summary I remember😅

Hi, I'm looking for a fic where young Stiles meets Derek in the woods as a werewolf, helps him get back home, to thank Stiles he writes him a letter and Derek replies that they become pen pals. That's what I remember that's how it starts. thank you!

#sterek fics #ficrecs #lost fic

[sailtomarina]

Romantic, If a Bit Macabre

She’d burst from the Floo with all the grace of a forest troll straight into Blaise’s drawing room, interrupting the third round of drinks. Draco had just been in the middle of explaining to Pansy that he was not interested in a blind date with yet another friend of hers—just because he and Hermione had broken up did not mean he was ready to get under someone new.

The littlest of details reminded him of her. A line from a song playing in the background at the pub. A book left along a side table, as if waiting to be picked up and finished. The hint of cinnamon when he walked by their favorite bakery, or wafting up from someone’s hot cocoa. He couldn’t escape her no matter where he went, and the twisted thing was that he had been the one to end things.

He’d pursued her so relentlessly at the start, wooed her into acceptance. Their sex was…there weren’t words to describe that level of compatibility. Once she was his and he was hers, he thought they had obtained their happy ever after. For a while—1 year, 2 months, and 23 days to be exact—that was the truth of it.

Then he had to go and muck it all up by asking her to marry him.

She said no.

That was that. The next day, Ginny showed up at the flat they had shared for half a year and packed up all her belongings. She even took Hermione’s favorite mug, separating it from the paired set to which it belonged.

Hermione’s reasons for refusal were simple in that they defined her. How could he deny her dreams? With her planned career path, she didn’t have time to devote to marriage, didn’t want to change her name, and didn’t want to have children yet. Never mind the fact that Draco had never expected any of those things. He didn’t care about continuing the Malfoy legacy and hadn’t for a long time. All he wanted was to be bound to her in the most intimate of ways.

Now she was here, Floo powder dusting her chunky maroon jumper and a streak of soot across her nose. The curls she’d taken to straightening for work were out in full force the way he preferred and dancing in a halo around her head like a creature possessed. She was breathing heavily as if she’d just sprinted across a field, her cheeks flushed red. Draco thought she’d never looked more lovely.

Hermione took three long strides and grabbed the closest person to her by the collar.

“Wha-what’s going on?” Theo cried, just managing to hand off his whiskey glass to Blaise before stumbling along behind her.

“You’re going to be our witness,” snapped Hermione.

She came to a halt in front of Draco. He couldn’t for the life of him understand what he’d done this time to earn the intensity that emanated from her tiny frame. And why did she need a witness?

“Go on, take out your wand.” She waved at Theo impatiently.

Draco took a sharp breath the instant her eyes turned away, and shrugged at the confused looks his friends sent their way.

“What’s going on, Granger?” He asked quietly. If he was about to die, he wanted to at least know why.

The faintest flicker of something, an emotion he couldn’t place, appeared before she schooled her face back to confidence. “I’m here to remedy a wrong.”

“A wrong,” he repeated.

They stared at one another for an awkward amount of time, likely only a few seconds, but it felt like minutes.

“Can you elaborate?” Did she want him to apologize for proposing?

Hermione took a deep breath and as his eyes scanned her figure, he realized she was gripping the hem of her jumper in a familiar gesture attempting self-control.

That flicker he’d seen earlier was fear.

“I overreacted when you proposed to me. I pushed you away instead of listening.” Her words came out in a single exhale as if they’d been waiting to vomit up from the moment she’d appeared.

He probably should have felt relieved, but all Draco could feel at the moment was numb confusion. 

“And how are you going to right overreacting and not listening?” His eyes panned over to Theo, who still stood with his wand held at an awkward angle awaiting instruction.

The unexpected feeling of her hand, so small and warm, taking his own snapped his attention back to her. She stared up at him like she was looking for something. Reassurance? Permission? Draco would give it all to her if only he knew how.

“I just need to know one thing first,” she said, just soft enough to stay between the two of them. In the motion to take his hand, she had stepped close into him. He tried not to greedily gulp in her comforting scent.

His voice came out rougher than intended. “Ask away.”

She continued to stare up at him for a few beats more, blinking heavily and lips parting in the waiting. Draco felt frozen within the amber of her eyes, caught like an insect and helpless to the flow of time.

“Do you still love me?”

He sucked in a deep breath. He’d been holding it in anticipation of her question, and now he felt like the hourglass had turned and the sands were rushing him along towards a yet unknown end.

“Of course I do.”

Hermione nodded as if she’d expected that answer, but the loosening of tension in her jaw revealed her relief. She turned back to Theo. “I need you to be our bonder. Place your wand against our hands.”

Bonder?

“I, Hermione Granger…”

His heart thundered in his ears, nearly drowning her out. “Hermione, you don’t have to—”

“…promise to always listen and communicate.”

“Love, please—”

“I promise to cherish you as you deserve and make time for us. I vow to stay true to my love for you, Draco Malfoy, for as long as you share that love.” She turned to nod at Theo, but before the other wizard could bind the oath, Draco cut in.

“I, Draco Malfoy, will never stand in the way of your dreams.”

“Oh, Draco…”

“I promise to support you in every way I know how to help you achieve them. I vow to match every one of the oaths that you’ve made to me and to love you until my very last breath.”

He willed her to feel his resolution through his gaze and grip. The first time he’d been involved in an Unbreakable Vow had been without his knowledge when his mother had made Severus promise to protect him. Draco knew the consequences of a broken vow. He also knew that he could never, ever break this one.

Tears spilled from her eyes as he continued to hold on to her and the golden threads of their oath wrapped around from wrist to wrist. They might as well have been alone, their friends and surroundings fading into nothingness as the light of their promises glowed all around them. They only saw each other and the hope of the future ahead of them.

“Granger, did you seriously prefer an Unbreakable Vow to waiting for me to set you up with Draco?”

Pansy’s shrill voice broke through the spell, effectively dispersing the tension in the air.

“Well, I thought it was romantic, if a bit macabre,” drawled Blaise. He took a sip from  what was probably Theo’s glass, given he held an empty one in his other hand.

Draco still held her hand in his own even though the magic of their vow had faded. She didn’t try to pull away, instead nestling forward as he proceeded to wrap his free arm around her. He peered down at her, a smirk starting to form on his lips.

“You were Pansy’s blind date?”

She snorted into his chest. “Yes, you prat. You shouldn’t have turned her down the past few times. We could’ve resolved this much sooner.”

“You realize accepting would’ve meant me moving on, right?”

This time it was her turn to grin up at him, a knowing glint in her eye. “Yes, but I would’ve pulled you right back to me.”

“You’re a witch.”

“I’m your witch.”

The groans that followed reminded them that no, they were not alone. “Get a room, you two!”

So, they did.

WC 1404

DHR Month Fest Prompt: Week 2 - Bonds, September 10 - Unbreakable Vow

Cross-posted on AO3

Big props to Pansy for helping Hermione try to fix things up with Draco, am I right?

While an Unbreakable Vow might be over the top, I don't think it's too unlike Hermione to do something so extreme given what she was like growing up with Harry. The girl has zero chill.

#dramione month #dramionemonth #dramione #dhr fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #draco malfoy x hermione granger #hermione granger #draco malfoy

[bloody-bee-tea]

IntiMarch 2024 Day 22 - What I want in my life

The prompt for this was "Let's stay here for a while"

Summer is fast approaching and with it, Suguru’s irritable mood makes a return. They’ve spent enough years together by now for Satoru to know that it has to do with Suguru’s visit at home, but he’s never quite gotten the details of why Suguru hates the thought of going home so much but he thinks that this year he’ll not let him deflect and evade the questions again.

This year, he’s going to find out what’s going on in the Geto household and he’ll fix it as best as he can.

And if he has to sit on Suguru to stop him from leaving, then he’ll damn well do that, too.

“You’re getting antsy again,” Satoru says one day over dinner, when Suguru has fiddled with his chopsticks more than he used them for eating and all Satoru gets for his trouble is a sharp glare.

“Fuck off,” Suguru grumbles out, right before he stuffs his mouth with food and even though that’s not at all what Satoru intended it’s at least a start.

He decides to drop it for this evening, but Suguru stays tense and angry for the rest of the week and when Satoru passes their shared calendar in the kitchen on Sunday he finally sees the big, fat, red X he had been looking for.

Suguru will depart for his home town in two weeks.

It’s about what Satoru expected, from the way Suguru’s mood declines but it also doesn’t give him much time to figure out what to do about it.

“Hey, Suguru, you want to order in?” Satoru asks, on the first Tuesday into his two week deadline and he raises an eyebrow when Suguru almost throws his controller at the TV.

“Do I look as if I fucking care?” he snaps out and then murders someone one screen so beautifully violently that Satoru almost feels impressed.

He’s not impressed with Suguru’s tone though.

“Hey, watch it,” he says, putting a little bit of bite into his voice and for a split second he thinks Suguru is going to argue, because he breathes in and opens his mouth, but before a sound comes out he completely deflates.

“Sorry. Satoru, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he whispers out, lowering the controller and Satoru walks over to him, sitting down next to Suguru and leaning into his side.

“I know. Don’t appreciate that it happened, though. Now. Food. Ordering in?”

Suguru leans more firmly into Satoru’s side as well before he nods.

“Sure, that sounds good.”

“Great. And if it happens again, you snapping at me like that, we’ll have a real long talk, just so you know,” Satoru threatens, and even though he softens his words with a smile and a little ruffle of Suguru’s hair, he definitely means it.

If Suguru is being like that towards him, then Satoru will absolutely not give it a rest. It’s hard enough seeing Suguru tense all day every day lately but Satoru draws the line and bearing the brunt of his anger.

“Okay,” Suguru agrees, and he very notably doesn’t promise that it won’t happen.

Which makes Satoru think.

Maybe—and this might be far-fetched as hell—but maybe Suguru finally wants to talk to him about whatever shit-show is happening when he goes back home.

“Okay,” Satoru whispers out when Suguru doesn’t offer any more and then orders their favourite dinner.

Suguru barely eats and Satoru glances over at the calendar. Twelve more days. He’ll figure it out before then.

~*~*~

On Friday, Suguru comes home drunk.

It’s surprising enough that Satoru freezes where he is in the living-room, silently watching Suguru stumble towards his room and vanishing inside. Satoru is still standing in the exact same spot when Suguru rushes out again, this time barrelling towards the bathroom and not a second later Satoru hears him throwing up.

Wonderful, Satoru thinks, but he joins Suguru in the bathroom and holds his hair back for him. He reeks of alcohol and deep-frying fat and Satoru makes a face at that.

“You really need a shower,” he says when Suguru stops heaving for a moment, and Satoru carefully moves with him when he moves from his knees to his butt, so his hair doesn’t get pulled on.

“You have no idea what I need,” Suguru slurs out, clearly still very drunk and Satoru rolls his eyes.

“No, because you moron won’t talk to me. You know I’m here for you, right?” he can’t help but to ask, because he thinks it should be a no-brainer that he’s always there for Suguru but maybe that knowledge got lost somewhere.

“I know,” Suguru finally quietly agrees and lists towards Satoru, who manages to catch him before he faceplants into the ground.

“I wish you would talk to me,” Satoru mutters, pressing his face into Suguru’s disgusting hair and even like this, he would never want to be anywhere else.

“’m sorry,” Suguru mumbles into Satoru’s shoulder and he even sounds like it.

“Yeah, well,” Satoru breathes out because what else is there to say.

Suguru doesn’t bring the evening up the next morning and Satoru doesn’t know if it’s because he forgot all about it or if he’s wilfully choosing to ignore it.

He just knows that he’s not going to get an answer out of Suguru like this. He really needs to change his tactics.

~*~*~

When Satoru has to spent an entire evening talking to himself on Sunday, even though Suguru is right there he decides to fuck it.

“Why are you even going there?” he outright asks, because half of the remaining time is already passed and he still hasn’t gotten a single answer out of Suguru.

“What do you mean?” Suguru demands to know and he already seems to be gearing up for a fight.

Well, if he wants one, then he can have one.

“Just don’t go. Look at what it does to you, even knowing you have to go there in a week. And don’t even get me started on how you are when you come back. It’s as if you’re barely a shell of yourself anymore, every time you return from your parents place.”

It’s the truth, too; Suguru is always a depressed mess when he gets back and it takes Satoru weeks to build him up again.

He really doesn’t understand why Suguru even goes through this at all.

Satoru broke with his family long ago; fed up with how they tried to control him, how they berated him, how nothing he ever did was good enough for them.

Satoru had that in his life all throughout his childhood; he really doesn’t need it in his adulthood, too.

“Of course you would say that,” Suguru bites out. “You wouldn’t understand; you were so happy to break with your parent back then.”

His tone is so condescending and mocking that it takes Satoru a moment to think past the pain they cause.

“Fuck you,” he finally says, getting up from the table and fleeing to his own room, letting Suguru sit there by himself.

Suguru has seen how his family fucked Satoru up; has witnessed the aftermath more than once and even helped him find a therapist for it a few years back. To have him say this now—

“Satoru, I’m sorry.” Suguru’s voice is muffled through the door and Satoru quickly hides under the blanket, pressing the fabric over his ears so he doesn’t have to hear him.

He can’t believe that Suguru would snap at him like this, that he would say stuff like that and right now Satoru is so hurt that he doesn’t even know if it’s all worth it.

Suguru was supportive when Satoru had trouble with his parents and Satoru was grateful for it. But now that Suguru has his own trouble with his parents Satoru doesn’t even get to be supportive, because he doesn’t know what’s going on, because Suguru won’t talk to him and instead does everything to push him away.

It’s unfair and it hurts and Satoru wants nothing to do with it anymore, at least not for today.

He stays in bed until he falls asleep and Monday comes around.

~*~*~

Avoiding Suguru is not that hard. They have lived together for long enough that Satoru knows his schedule by heart; he knows all his routines and quirks and knows when not to be home and when to stay in his room.

It’s almost too easy, Satoru thinks, but he can’t be bothered to give it more thought than that. He’s going to stay out of Suguru’s way until he has to leave on Monday morning next week and then he’ll care for Suguru and put him back together like he always did before, because when Suguru comes back he’ll be suffering and Satoru cannot stand to see that.

Satoru forces himself to not think too hard about why Suguru won’t trust him with this, why he won’t tell Satoru what’s going on, but the doubt is eating away at Satoru every day.

Suguru doesn’t trust him. He doesn’t trust him enough to tell him about this and it’s such a blow to what Satoru thought was an unshakable friendship that he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

His only option is to ignore Suguru.

He manages until Thursday. Satoru expected to easily make it to Monday, because Suguru clearly doesn’t want to talk so why should he ever come seek Satoru out, but Satoru hears him come home late in the afternoon and before Satoru can drown out every sound in the apartment with music, his bedroom door opens.

Satoru freezes on the bed, too surprised to do anything and he jolts in surprise when Suguru comes into the room.

He must be standing directly next to the bed, Satoru thinks, but he doesn’t dare to look, doesn’t even so much as breathe. He isn’t sure if it’s out of fear of sending Suguru running again or if he’s scared Suguru will say something.

The choice is taken out of his hands when Suguru lets out an audible sigh and then slides into bed with Satoru. He lifts the blanket, letting in cold air for a moment, before he presses himself close to Satoru’s back, slinging his arms around his middle and resting his forehead at the base of Satoru’s neck.

“Let’s stay here for a while,” Suguru mumbles and it’s so fucking ridiculous that it makes Satoru huff out a bitter laugh.

“You’re such an asshole,” he hisses out but he can’t quite bring himself to wiggle out of Suguru’s arms.

“I know. I know, Satoru, and I’m sorry. What I said was uncalled for and mean and I should never have said it. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve been sorry a whole lot lately,” Satoru bitterly says. “Maybe I’m fucking tired of hearing it.”

“And you should be,” Suguru agrees and immediately takes all the wind out of Satoru’s sails.

“What the hell is going on with you?” Satoru asks after a moment. “Why are you like this when a visit to your parents comes up?”

He doesn’t expect Suguru to answer, not really. Satoru is prepared for Suguru to move away and pretend they never spoke and Suguru does stay quiet.

He doesn’t move away though.

It’s not much, Satoru thinks, but it’s at least a start. And it might have to be enough, he realises, because it’s not as if he can force Suguru to talk.

“My parents—” Suguru surprisingly starts and Satoru forces himself to lay real still, in case he startles Suguru and makes him run off again. “They are—they are trying to be good people, I think.”

That is not a very promising start, Satoru thinks but instead of blurting that out he bites his lips. He can’t run his mouth now, not when Suguru is finally talking to him.

“They are not—abusive or anything, it’s just.” Suguru heaves out a deep sigh. “They have expectations of me. Expectations I can pretend don’t exist when I’m here, with you, in the city, but when I go back there, it feels as if they are crushing me.”

Satoru still doesn’t say anything, but he reaches for Suguru’s hand on his stomach, carefully threading their fingers together and he feels a little lighter when Suguru squeezes his hand.

“They want me to move back, find myself a nice girl and marry, have a handful of kids and live the same life they had.”

“But you’re—” Satoru can’t help but to say and Suguru chuckles, though it sounds very resigned to Satoru.

“They know I’m gay. I’ve told them repeatedly, but they don’t want to hear it. You see, there are no gay people in our village.”

“That’s such bullshit,” Satoru mutters and can’t stay still any longer, so he turns around in Suguru’s arms, so their faces are only inches apart.

“It’s not—they are not really doing anything, it’s just. I know that my entire life is wrong in their eyes and they will give me these well-meaning comments and give me unwarranted advice for my entire stay there and it’s so. It’s exhausting, Satoru. It’s exhausting and I am dreading every second I have to spend there, and I very much do not want to go, but it’s not as if they are doing anything, you know.” Suguru closes his eyes before he leans in closer, resting their foreheads together. “I’m really sorry, I’m always taking out on you.”

“That’s why you’re always so down when you come back,” Satoru whispers, and shuffles closer to press the entire lengths of their bodies together.

“I know they are wrong and that I can live my life however I want to but it’s wearing me down. Not in a I’m going to give in and do what they say kind of way, but it’s as if they are methodically whittling away on my dreams and wishes and what I want out of my life. They are taking away all of my joy, because no matter what I do, I know they’ll never be happy with it, as long as I don’t do it exactly like they want.”

“That sucks really bad,” Satoru whispers because what else is there to say really and it does make Suguru smile, however brief it might have been.

“It does.”

“What do you want out of your life?” Satoru asks, because maybe it will help when Suguru remembers what he’s working for, what he wants.

It seems to have been the wrong thing to ask though, because Suguru goes deathly quiet.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Satoru backtracks when minutes passed without Suguru speaking and he hopes that it’s not audible how rejected he feels by Suguru’s silence.

“You,” Suguru finally says, his eyes closed and body tense as if he’s bracing for a hit. “I want you.”

“Suguru—” Satoru’s voice breaks, his heart beating way too fast in his chest, because surely Suguru can’t mean it the way Satoru wants him to mean that.

“And I don’t mean as friends, Satoru,” Suguru goes on, opening his eyes and immediately locking gazes with Satoru. “Though, of course I always want you in my life, but. I’m in love with you, Satoru. That’s the way I want you in my life.”

“In the gay way?” Satoru blurts out because he’s an idiot and this is a whole lot to take and Suguru stares at him with wide eyes before he bursts out laughing.

“Yes, Satoru, in the gay way,” he agrees and Satoru feels so happy he could melt into the mattress.

“I want you in the gay way, too,” Satoru says and Suguru laughs again.

It’s such a nice sound, Satoru wants to bury himself in it.

“That’s your way of telling me you love me, too?”

“I do, Suguru, I’m in love with you, too,” Satoru is quick to say, in case there could be any doubt about it, but he knows there was no danger of that when Suguru’s face goes all soft and mushy.

“Good,” he whispers and leans in to brush their lips together. “Come with me, then.”

“Huh?” Satoru blurts out, his brain not firing on all cylinders, because the only thing he can currently think of are Suguru’s lips on his.

“To my parents. Come with me. It’s going to suck, if you’re there or not, but at least if you’re there then I have someone I can turn to.”

“Of course,” Satoru immediately agrees, because how could he ever say no.

If he can have Suguru’s back then he will, no matter when or where. “Of course I’ll come with you. Will they give you a hard time for bringing your boyfriend?”

“They won’t acknowledge that you’re my boyfriend. They’ll pretend we’re really close friends and shove some girls at me. You could kiss me right in front of them and they would still refuse to accept it.”

“That’s just so shitty,” Satoru complaints and tries to kiss it better.

It doesn’t quite work, not yet, but Satoru thinks he’ll get time to practice.

“It kinda is,” Suguru agrees. “But it will be less shitty with you around.”

“I’m there,” Satoru promise him and Suguru burrows his face into Satoru’s neck.

“Thank you,” he whispers, his lips grazing the sensitive skin at the base of Satoru’s neck and a shudder runs through him.

“Always,” he gives back and hugs Suguru close.

Now that he knows just what it is that’s upsetting him like that, he’ll do his best to mitigate the damage his parents do. He’ll interrupt and he’ll be obnoxious and he’ll direct the conversations elsewhere, if only so that Suguru can have two at least okay-ish weeks.

And what he can’t stop by being his usual annoying self, he’ll simply have to kiss better in the evening.

Suguru surely won’t complain about that, Satoru is certain of that. Because Suguru loves him, just like Satoru loves Suguru. Just like it should be.

#bt writes #jjk #satosugu #geto suguru #gojo satoru #dysfunctional family #no curses #getting together #love confession #first kiss #hurt/comfort #fluff

[keitorinrose]

can you tell us about your trolls x su au or tell us the basics of the story?

Sure! There probably won't be a lot of details because there's a lot of things i still need to figure out.

The idea for the au came because i remembered the song drift away and thought "this is so floyd and branch" and then it spiralled from there. None of this is final btw. things can and probably will change because I don't make aus often. 💀 Also don't think too hard about the su part of this au. Im probably only gonna use the basic parts of it and will barely use anything from the show because I'm mostly focusing on the movie of su and not the serie and epilogue.

I currently only have the roles for the main characters so

Branch is Spinel

Floyd is Steven (but he's still the one who makes the promise with branch even though in su that was pink diamond and not steven.)

Clay is Amethyst

Spruce/Bruce is Pearl

And JD is Garnet

I want to add viva, poppy and brandy too but I don't know which characters they would be yet.

So brozone breaks up. JD, spruce and clay leave and before floyd goes he makes the promise with branch, he stays and one day he'll come back for him. Years pass by and floyd still hasn't returned. Branch's colors are becoming duller as the years go by, he starts doubting himself but never fully gives up hope.

Here's where i struggle a bit with the story because i don't have a reason yet why floyd never came back. At some point floyd reunites with the others but idk the reason yet why branch isn't part of that reunion.

Just like in the song drift away i want branch to get a message that shows floyd and the others so that he realises that he's been abandoned and that floyd broke the promise. That's when branch would go grey. (Idk if I'm adding rosiepuff in this au)

So this is when the su plot comes in. Branch comes with the injector. He fights brozone and in the process everyone gets reset except floyd. When they get reset they're back into their roles before brozone broke up. So clay is back to being the funboy, spruce the heartthrob and jd the leader. With branch i think he would act more childlike or innocent? Because im not gonna make an adult act like a baby 💀

So now floyd has to figure out how to turn his brothers back to normal. I think the order of who comes back is gonna be the same as the movie so clay->bruce->branch->JD.

Oh and the others didn't know about the promise. they didn't know that branch stayed in the garden all those years, Floyd never told them.

Have not thought yet how floyd brings them back.

After clay gains his memory back they go back to the injector and try to turn it off when they realise it's harming the land. They make it worse and now the injector is going faster(?) So they realise they NEED branch to get his memory back or else they can't turn it off.

when floyd manages to bring branch's memory back they talk and he's on their side. He removes the injector and everything seems to be going fine. It's then when branch fears he is going to be abandoned again and thinks floyd will reset him again after he removed the injector so they fight. Somewhere during that JD gets his memory back too. I think most of this part from the movie I won't change. So floyd and branch fight one to one. Floyd sings the song "change" maybe? Idk yet. Branch saying that he can't just make everything better just because he sang a song. He tries to continue fighting floyd but he tires himself out so then this scene happens

I am changing the lines though. I think something like "i just want my brothers back." Idk

I think that's all i have at the moment. I'll add more to this post if i think of anything. Most of my ideas for this au was me looking at spinel clips and thinking "oh i can draw that with branch!"

I hope this is readable because I'm writing this during midnight and am NOT good at explaining stuff. 💀

If anyone has ideas i would love to hear it! because im not good at figuring stuff out

#dreamworks trolls #trolls #trolls au #trolls x su movie au #steven universe the movie

[cherrypikkins]

@wild-moss-art Hi there! I'm more than happy to share art philosophy about lineart! You are correct, I am definitely spending less time than usual on my lineart to get these requests done, but I'm still glad with the final results. :3

Here are the three stages that I take to achieve clean and polished lineart.

1) The Rough Sketch is used to figure out what the final product may look like. No fine details yet, only guidelines and basic shapes. I make sure the proportions, alignment, and composition is correct. The completed Rough Sketch gives me a good idea of what the rendered lines may look like, but is a bit too messy to follow. While I do have the option of erasing all of the guidelines and cleaning up the lines, what I usually do is lower the opacity of the rough sketch and start on a new layer.

2) The Under Drawing is done in a non-black color on top of the rough sketch. Here is where I get into finer detail with expression and anatomy. However, because we are following the messy lines of the rough sketch, the Under Drawing will still look a little unpolished. It is still very suitable for coloring if you plan to render all of the details in the painting stage, or if you are going for a more sketchy style.

In order to get sharp, detailed, finely rendered lines however, an additional stage is required.So lets lower the opacity and start a new layer using black ink this time.

3) When Rendering Lines, I carefully follow all of the details provided by the Under Drawing, which shows exactly where each line should be placed. I take my time going over each line, using the zoom tool and rotating the canvas when needed to get the best angle.

Because the final product should have a sharp and clean look, it can be very time consuming and pain staking to go over all the details. That said, I have a few tips that will help this stage go along faster while adding visual appeal to the final product.

Let's use an example. Suppose you place down your lines and end up with something that looks like this.

It's not bad, but it could use a little work. The expression and level of detail that we want isn't there yet, but it's actually a good starting point. If you are new to line art or still practicing, you may wish to aim something like the drawing above so that we can take it a step further using the steps I will demonstrate in the tutorial below.

So how do we make clean lineart into something even greater?

Here is what I mean by line weight. Lines of lower weight are lighter and thinner. Lines of heavier weight are darker and thicker. Then there are modulated lines, which gradually increase or decrease in weight.

In the example drawing, all of the lines are of equal weight. We can make the line art less monotonous by increasing the weight of certain lines. For demonstration purposes, I will only make changes to the right side of the drawing so that you can see the difference.

To start, we will add another line to the upper eyelid and fill in the gap, creating a new, bolder line.

We will also build up the iris, pupil and highlight, adding details as we go. Already, it is looking more expressive.

Lets build up the nose and mouth lines while keeping the ends nice and thin.

Then, we can add weight to the face and ear lines. For the hair outline, we want to make the lines heavier closer to the roots while keeping the ends thin. Hair lines on the inside can be left alone.

Finally, we make the outside line of the character heavier. With these small changes, we have a much more expressive, detailed, and visually appealing product.

Here I've highlighted in red where the lines remained unchanged. You will definitely want to leave some lines alone while building up others. As a rule, outlines should be thicker while the detail lines on the inside should be thinner.

If you increase the weight of all lines with the same amount, it will remain flat.

So, you should aim to have a variety of light lines, heavy lines, and modulated lines. You may wish to use the eraser to lighten up heavy lines or create modulated ones.

If you can do all the steps above, then a lot of detail and expression will be preserved even when the image is shrunk down

Hope that helps :3 Let me know if there are any other questions I can answer.

#tutorial #ref

[thekingofwinterblog]

Sasha's Parents

Allright, so thanks to the diary we finally got some definite info on Sasha's parents. Let's dissect it, and analyze how the divorce might have turned her into the person she is today.

According to Anne, Sasha's parents divorced when she was around four- or five-years-old. Her father remarried and doesn't seem to have had any other kids, while her mother has a long-term boyfriend who has kids of his own.

So what does this tell us? Well, the first thing we have to do is speculate which of Sasha's parents has custody of her, because knowing that, we can draw a lot of conclusions.

Personally, I am almost certain that it's her father, for reason i'll go into below.

Firstly, let's analyze the events of the divorce, before trying to figure out how the events of the series relates to the original plan the creators had to have an episode where Sasha reveals the full details of her backstory to Anne.

Mr and Mrs Waybright divorced when Sasha was 5 years old, but the implication we get from what little we know about the two people involved suggests that this wasn't simply a case of two people realizing things weren't working out... Because the implications seems to be that Mrs Waybright left her husband for another man... Who already had kids of his own, and who she very explicitly did not marry.

Why is this important? Because it explains everything we ever needed to know about Sasha's seething, burning desire to always be in control, and more importantly, on top.

Because in Sasha's 5 year old mind, seeing her mom leave her dad for another man, who already had a bunch of kids, while abandoning her, is tantamount to saying that she was worthless in her mother's eyes. She didn't measure up. Clearly her mom cared more about these kids than her... When in reality, it was the new boyfriend she actually cared about, not the kids. Neither the new ones... Or her own flesh and blood.

It also explains perfectly why Sasha's reaction to the Plantars "Stealing" Anne from her turned her downright murderous. In her mind it was basically history repeating itself again. Her losing someone she loved to another family she knew nothing about.

No wonder this girl hated the very concept of family.

Meanwhile, her dad married another woman, which which can safely assume was not a warm, loving relationship. More likely than not, whether this woman wanted to try and be a mother to Sasha, it's abundantly clear that that wasn't gonna happen. After the divorce, Sasha would have rejected any and all attempts at replacing her mother, and that stuck.

Her eternal quest to make Anne and Marcy happy is also explained by this. Sasha wants to make the people she loves happy. She wants them to like her, to appreciate her, to be rewarded with love and attention by people she loves and cares about.

But while this does explain a lot(Her control issues, her disdain for family, her non existent love for said family) there is still some things it does not explain, or at least there seems to be something more we aren't told.

So, let's put forth another question, to explain the things that a simple, if ugly divorce does not explain.

Was Sasha abused by her parents?

Throughout the series, Sasha continously says some extremely heavy lines, that though they fit perfectly with what is happening in the moment, all seem to be as a response to something else that happened previously in Sasha's life, that we just don't have the context for.

When Sasha hits her absolute lowest point, after having seemingly destroyed the only thing she truly cared about for Good and all, Sasha very deliberately refers to herself as belonging in the Trash, and that it's all someone like her deserves, in a tone that suggests she is accepting something she felt deep in her heart was innevitable.

That could be her being overly dramatic... But it could be something else.

Like she had been told that this was all she amounted to, a worthless brat who no one would love, who belonged in the trash.

Not while Anne and Marcy are getting by withouth me.

This line is pretty clear in it's meaning, but again, the way it's said and worded suggests it's referencing something someone else said at some point.

Hey anne... Maybe you're better off without me.

Sasha's famous line when she decides to kill herself is an important one, and one where she proves that she is willing to lay down her life for anne if it comes to that.

But knowing the circumstances with her parents divorce, it's hard not to read more into it. That Sasha had a genuine fear that her mother didn't just leave her, but that she was better off withouth her.

That could be projecting... but it doesn't have to be. Sasha could have heard it straight from the horse's mouth.

End of discussion

This one is absolutely referencing a line. This is a line Sasha uses to shut down any arguments Anne has when Sasha wants the discussion to end.

But that isn't something kids tend to learn on their own. They learn that by example. By mimicking others.

So before going into speculation of how Sasha may or may not have been abused, lets finish by pointing out the biggest argument for it.

The incredibly unsettling, and unnatural way Sasha does not care about her Parents in any way.

Sasha makes it abundantly clear throughout the entire series that she does not care about her parents. At all. Her relationship with them isn't a complicated one. It's nonexistent. As far as she cares, it does not exist.

That is incredibly unnatural behavior from a child. Even the most abused, or neglected of children will usually have some form of natural attachment to their parents, or parental figures. It's simply the way human beings are made.

It takes A LOT to break that bond completely, even for an adult.

But Sasha isn't an adult. She is a child. And yet her bond to her parents is as far as she is concerned for most of the series, broken beyond any repair.

And she doesn't care to try and fix it. That all on it's own speaks volumes of just how BAD her relationship with her folks are.

So, let's get to speculating on what exactly the kind of abuse Sasha might have gone through with her parents, because there is probably two very distinct kinds from each of her parents.

Of the two, I would guess that if she was abused, the most visceral part came from her mom.

Most of Sasha's biggest issues are clearly a result of her mother leaving her, and so this would make sense.

So, what sort of abuse might Sasha have suffered at the hands of her mother that broke her down so badly, given the woman left her behind, and so probably didn't interact with her much beyond this?

If i had to guess, all of it probably stems for what happened during the divorce, where her mom essentially put all her cards on the table, and let her real feelings be put on full display.

And there are several reasons her mom might have had to lash out at her own child. It could be as simple as the fact she used Sasha to hurt her now ex-husband. Rubbing in that he was stuck with her now.

It could be that sasha was an unplanned child that she didn't want, and had secretly resented for all five years of her life.

She may have been pressured into having her by her Mr Waybright, and now that she no longer had to even try to make him happy, she made it abundantly clear how much she never wanted the damned child he put in her.

Or she could flat out not have liked Sasha, based solely on her personality.

Whatever the reasons, it's clear that the events of the divorce shattered Sasha to her core, and would be essential into forming her into the person she was at the start of the series.

Having one of the people that Sasha(Who is a person who forms STRONG attachments) loves more than any other, turn on her completely, and reveal she always hated her would probably have done the trick.

Now, let's move on to Mr Waybright.

I am very certain that Sasha probably learned the "End. Of. Discussion." From him, as their relationship seems to have been a different kind of breakdown.

Namely that he seems to have given up on Sasha, giving her a level of personal control over her life that is downright irresponsible, letting her throw parties on the regular, seemingly giving her free access to cash as she needs it, and having failed to instill any discipline into his kid.

These are all classic symptoms of a relationship where the parent has given up, and simply gives the kid what they want so they don't have to deal with them.

But was this always the case?

The simple fact is, that with what we know of Mrs Waybright, the extreme destruction of her relationship with Sasha makes sense. There are details one has to speculate on, but there is a clear line to follow from point A to B.

Not so with Mr Waybright.

We know where they ended up, the turning point, but not the steps between.

The only thing we have to go on, Is that amongst her many, many unusual traits for someone so young, Sasha has a much older person's view on discipline. Namely she does not respond to it, because she does not respect the person delivering it, be they teachers or Grime.

It does not take a genius to figure out that this probably stems from her relationship with her father.

The simplest, and most likely explanation is that Mr Waybright attempts at parenting probably involved a lot of discipline, and attempts to instill Sasha with a sense dread at a phrace with the meaning of "This conversation is over".

In this he obviously failed, Because for whatever reason(probably something that happened during the divorce) Sasha does not respect him... But Sasha in turn seems to have learned this very kind of tactic herself from him.

Mr Waybright thusly seems to have had more of a sense of familial obligation to Sasha... At least trying to instill her with something resembling discipline... Until finally just giving up on her all together and just letting her do as she pleased.

All in all whether there was actual abuse involved, or just a child's entire world crumbling due to a very ugly divorce, I really, really wish we'd gotten Sasha's backstory episode.

#amphibia #sasha waybright #anne boonchuy #meta #sasha's parents #mrs waybright #mr waybright #speculation #parental abuse #cycle of abuse

[mynameismad]

Please can I have some advice about making comics, specifically figuring out panel/page layout? Robber/Robert was beautiful and flowed so nicely

(Sorry, I know that’s a big ask, especially busy as you are! I would be grateful for even the smallest nugget of wisdom!)

Hey! I know you're specifically referencing Robber/Robert, but all of the tips I gave in my How To Draw Sakana series still mostly apply to the way I make comics!

I plot out important story beats first (and the ending) and fill in little jokes between those mostly on the fly.

Even though RR is mostly digital (unlike Sakana, which is totally traditional), I still thumbnail RR traditionally because it's easier for me to see the whole page that way, and really get a sense of how big each panel and each element within the panel needs to be. All other details are basically omitted at this point, it's really just figuring out page composition. I also write out the dialogue traditionally. Even if I have a good idea of what I want the characters to say in every panel, trying to come up with exact dialogue later in the process always spells disaster for me. So I try to figure out dialogue and thumbnails at the same time.

The 5 in 5 rule is still what governs my panel/page layouts! I feel like the last [5] rule is worded a little poorly: what I mean is that hands can also add a lot to character acting and should be present as often as possible to avoid having too many "talking heads" panels. Even if a page is dialogue heavy, at least having the character gesture with hands or even do a small task (like make coffee or something) during a conversation or monologue will be more satisfying to read. ALSO, BACKGROUNDS ARE GOOD. I know I'm in the minority of people who LOVE drawing very complicated backgrounds, but even a few little lines or shapes or colors here and there behind a character can keep them present in the environment. I always try to Avoid The Void, but it really depends on how important the setting is to your story. I only draw comics with very specific important settings for some reason lol.

RR is in an American comics format (so roughly 10"x15", which is a 2x3 ratio and can scale down to 6x9 for print.) Again, I think it's important to get as much of a sense of how the page will look in the thumbnail stage as possible, without bogging yourself down with too many details. Often characters will just be pegs with circles for heads (and in Rob's case, two little antenna lines that make him look like a cricket), but where they are and how big they are are most crucial. I'd even suggest thumbnailing two consecutive pages right next to each other so you can really see the flow from one to the next.

The rest of the pages only really apply if you're thinking about doing your comic completely traditional. Penciling, inking, and lettering DON'T need to happen on the same page/paper, but I'm used to that workflow so that's how I do it!

LETTERING IS STILL VERY IMPORTANT THOUGH. I'm sorry to be harsh, but there's nothing worse than bad letters on a great looking comic. If you're not feeling great about your lettering capabilities, I'd suggest taking some time with tutorials and practice to get something that really fits your comic style.

FINALLY, it's important to go out there and find comics that you LIKE and really study what they're doing, how they're doing it, and why it speaks to you. Currently I'm looking at a lot of Franco-Belgian comics, which are bigger than american or manga sizes, and CHOCK FULL of backgrounds usually. Some day I'd like to make something that looks similar, so I'm using every comic project I make as practice to get closer and closer to that style.

Anyways, I know that's a lot of images and text, so thank you if you got all the way through it, and I hope it's helpful! If there's something specific you're still confused about, I can always try to explain a little more. Thanks!

#askbox #how to make comics #tips #sakana

[clambuoyance]

hi I really love your art style and I’m an aspiring artist so I wanted to ask, what’s your step by step process for drawing faces? do you use references for each pose or do you just wing it? and for bodies, how did you learn to draw with perfect proportion?

Thank you :D 💕 there’s still a lot of learning for me to do, but I will do my best to explain my process and answer your questions :)

1) Faces

So I usually start with a circle and overlap it w a rough oval face shape, and then I put a cross that cuts through the middle both length- and width-wise. I also usually mark where the hair line is (roughly halfway from the top of the head and the middle line). Then I start sketching in features of the face. This can of course vary, but usually eyes fall in the middle of the head (the middle line), mouth is about halfway from the chin to the eyes, the nose is halfway between the mouth and eyes, and eyebrows are half way from eyes to hairline. Obviously you can exaggerate these features, and change proportions, but these are just the basics. And even with exaggeration, people still tend to draw with a ratio that pleases the brain (i.e, thirds).

Sometimes I need another pass and do another sketch w more detail, but for faces I usually like to just jump into lineart w a rough sketch. I start with the eyes/eyebrows because I feel like they are the most expressive part of the face, and that you can tell what a person is thinking or feeling by their eyes and/or eyebrows alone (Which is probably why I love designs where characters have masks/helmets that only show their eyes or have white eyes). And I love drawing the little wrinkles in them when someone’s angry or pensive haha. Then I draw the mouth/nose, then cheek/jawline, then neck, and I do the hair :)

Once you know the rough basics, you can adjust certain features. For example, maybe you want more angular cheeks with a long face, or a kid with slightly curvy cheeks to show their youth. Maybe you want someone to have a more square jaw, but big round eyes. Etc etc. BUT the proportions are roughly the same. You’re free to experiment though and change up proportions.

2) Poses/Bodies

Okay, I really should use more references, but I tend to just wing things😭 I sped up a 15 min doodle so maybe it helps w the process, but I usually just start drawing a face and then figure out what I want to do from there. However, if there’s a pose I want but can’t figure out, I will look up a reference. And then that knowledge gets added to my brain. The ability to wing things doesn’t come from nowhere. It helps to do studies and experiment, because the more you observe different poses and try them out yourself, the more your brain starts to understand how bodies work in a 3D space, and you will be able to recreate or make your own poses from your own mind.

As for the body proportions, I feel like that’s the thing I need the most practice in, but again it’s the same advice w studies and experimenting. I also have a couple tips I answered a while back, that should be somewhere if you scroll through my #art tip tag

Hope this was helpful 😅 and have fun drawing and creating !

#clam answers #that ended up being Jon kent I guess #and Lloyd garmadon #clam draws #art tip #art tips #art reference

[dyradoodles]

Hiiiiii! 💕 I was just wondering….. what are your preferences for Zack & Seph? Do you ship ‘em, is it up to circumstance, does the age matter to you/do you consider their age and their gap? Why not even throw in how you fell in love with Zack & Seph to begin with? Do you have sources?? MLA format for Zack’s fandom page???

*plops down on floor*

Details plz! ❤️

Ah yes hello person that I definitely do not know, who definitely didn't see me say I could write an essay about this very subject on discord LMFAO

I'll put the actual essay under a cut for people who don't want to scroll through my Many Feelings about these two lol As a TLDR to your questions:

Yes I ship them, but also Yes it's up to circumstance! Yes I consider their canon ages/the age gap (which most visibly manifests in me only drawing them platonically if I'm drawing Zack as a Second/with the puppy hair, or writing a fic taking place during CC)! I was actually into Aeriseph first and stumbled into ZackSeph fics, and realized it was a similar dynamic, but with someone who spent time with Seph canonically before he went bananas! All of this was before CC came out and I've been loving these characters for 20+ years!

To borrow a phrase (from crylin iirc), honestly, I like just seeing them standing next to each other, romantic or no LMAO <3

NOW, FOR THE ESSAY.

So to expand on what I said earlier, I think it's obvious from my blog and ZS server that I ship these two LMAO That said, the way I ship them is based heavily on the era of fandom before CC was a thing. I got into FF7 around 2002 (possibly earlier, I just don't have the dates on drawings that old), five years before CC came out. At the time, we knew next to nothing about Zack beyond the very short clips of him in OG. So, fandom did what fandom does best, and tried to fill in the blanks!

Some of the efforts to figure out who Zack was went all the way down to his name, because it's Zakkusu in Japanese. So you'll see him as Zax, too - There were heated debates on whether to use Zack or Zax. And no last name! Fandom had to come up with surnames themselves. We also didn't have much of a reference beyond his polygon model, which seemed to have darker skin and, (as many fics described it) violet eyes. It was also assumed that, since he was a First who worked closely with Sephiroth, he was probably around Sephiroth's age. You likely already see where I'm going with this, laying all that out lol The Zack I draw and write is very much based on that time period, and if I'm honest, that's the character I really ship with Seph. I still joke in my fics sometimes that Zack's last name might be Donovan or Darklighter, etc., which are old fandom surnames!

Now, obviously CC came out and threw all this on its head, because we finally got a whole GAME about this (important!) minor character. I have many beefs with CC's writing and Square's insistence that so many of their characters need to be child prodigies (they can't ALL be prodigies, Square!!!). With Zack going from an assumed early 20s to suddenly being 16, and all the craziness of CC's plot, the way I approached the ship changed as well.

This is where I would firmly say my stance is: I don't think Seph had any interest in Zack romantically, in CC. Because that's a kid lmao If I'm engaging with the Compilation as a whole, I definitely lean way more into the mentor/mentee relationship for the two of them. As a personal rule, I only draw them platonically if Zack's got the puppy hair, because that was the most obvious visual cue I could think of that could draw that line between Zack's teen years vs. adult. If Seph managed to not go insane, then yeah, later in life I could still see them getting together! But clearly that's already AU territory lmfao

Ultimately, what I like best about Zack & Seph is how they treat each other (while Seph is still sane lol). That goes for platonically and romantically. Zack is so genuine and kind, and treats Seph the way he always wanted to be treated - like he's human. He can joke around with Seph in a way most people simply can't. Meanwhile, Seph treats Zack's feelings with respect, even during the times he's laughing at Zack for being ridiculous. He's also honest with Zack. He answers truthfully when Zack asks what's wrong, and it's clear that it's because he knows Zack is not a threat; Zack will take Seph's feelings seriously, too. I can enjoy the drama of the trauma and heartbreak that comes with Sephiroth's descent into villainy, but my favorite stuff definitely involves a lot of Nibelheim fix-it fics lol

Despite all the changes CC made to Zack and his relationship to Sephiroth (RIP Second in Command Zax Donovan/Darklighter/Knightblade, my beloved), their actual dynamic with regard to how they treat each other stayed, miraculously, intact. That's the real reason they're still my favorite characters, and how my enjoyment of FF7 has remained as strong as it is after literal decades. Square can retcon as many things as they want in the Compilation, but they'll never stop me from making art and fic of the characters I grew up with. Unless I get a C&D for some reason LMFAO Until then, I'll keep enjoying my AUs (and if anything, I have even more reason to enjoy them now that AUs themselves are canon - you bet your ass I'll be in the AUs where ONLY OG happened and I can ignore everything else LOL)

Thank you for the questions!! It was fun to get all my thoughts written down in one huge chunk, as opposed to my typical disjointed ramblings to my friends. Hopefully it was an interesting read!

Sources:

Fanlore. “Zack Fair.” The Organization for Transformative Works, 2 Jan. 2023, fanlore.org/wiki/Zack_Fair.

Doodles, Dyra. "Way Too Much Fandom Lurking." Dyra's Childhood to Adulthood, Copious Amounts of Fanfiction, 3 Apr. 2024

#zackseph #sephzack #ask #yes the sources are in MLA format #yes I put perhaps too much effort into this #I HAVE NO CHILL WRT FF7 LMAO