If you don't mind my asking, how do you go about drawing fat? :3
JUST THE EXCUSE I WAS LOOKING FOR
So, for me personally, a lot of the time when I draw fat characters, I'm not looking to specifically capture the specifics of fat as much as the feel of fat. Bulkier, rounder shapes in the right places that has a feeling of weight to em! A lot of that is intuition and simplification at this point, but it all works on the same frame as just any ol' person. Like take this-
For example. This is the basis for any body shape, not just the more average one that it may imply. Sure- it can be that average body shape:
But also a fat one too!
And a big part of that is knowing where fat usually tends to bunch up on the body, so lets take a look piece by piece! (Please keep in mind this is very simplified, and not completely precise in some parts)
THE FACE: Cheeks (in purple) and especially the chin (in light blue) are the places where a lot of the fat is gonna wanna gather and round out on your face! Additionally, theres a small pocket of fat beneath the cranium on the backside of your head. It's small, but it is there. I believe fat can build up elsewhere like the bridge of your nose and forehead, but generally speaking, you're gonna have a whole lot more buildup in other places first.
THE TORSO: A lot of the fat built up on the torso is gonna be sent to your tummy. More cushioning for vital organs, mostly out of the way, it just makes sense. Additionally, the lower backs fat builds up and joins with a patch of fat on your sides that forms what is typically referred to as the love handles to make that double belly look. Along with this, the immediate next target for the torso is the breasts, followed by the upper back!
THE ARMS: For this limb, a VERY notable amount of the fat present builds up on the tricep and bicep areas, lessening once you get towards the flexor and extensor areas. You can almost think of the arm as a sort of triangular shape, wide side starting from the shoulder and tapering towards the hand, which itself mostly builds up fat around the back of the hand and the fingers. The shoulders themselves don't build up too much fat unless you got a lot
THE LEGS: And finally, you can think of the legs having pretty similar curves to what you're probably already used to thinking. The front of the thighs getting a big buildup, along with the back of the calves, the other parts being flatter in turn. As far as the feet go- similarly to the hands, the top of the feet, along with the heels get most of the buildup, as fat on your soles would impede mobility. The glute, hip and crotch area will also especially build up fat, lending to the same triangular shape that you can see in the arm!
A big thing to note with fat is that it tends to taper off towards joints. Your knees, elbows, shoulders, hips, and all the other places are gonna have significantly less fat so that you remain mobile and flexible, as that's important!
Now that we have an idea of where fat builds up on the body, you might have something that looks kinda like this
Which yes, does demonstrate a solid understanding of the places fat builds up, lacks the weight you're probably trying to convey, which brings us to out next point! Fat is well... heavy! Gravity is what gives fat much of it's shape, especially as you tread towards larger and larger bodies.
This is demonstrated really well on the arms especially-
Those big ol' bits of fat'll really start to sag when left hanging, and they will squish like hell if they run into something. I like to think of these bits of fat as big ol' ovals that squash and stretch depending on if there's an obstacle in their way or not
These are the important shapes to remember when it comes to the weightiness of fat! If you take all of this into mind, you should be getting something a lot closer to that shape you've been after!
Oh, and always remember that fat bodies come in all variety of shapes and sizes! Play around with a whole lot, and seek out all the resources you can! it'll really lend to your knowledge when it comes to this kinda stuff!
And as I always recommend when it comes to learning art- look at what your favorite artists do with fat bodies. See what you really like about the fat bodies they draw and try to replicate it in your own work, I promise you it's one of the most helpful things ever.
This is like the most basic of basics when it comes to drawing fat bodies though. If there's any additional thing about fat bodies, or maybe you want clarification on something, don't be afraid to ask! If there's enough to cover, I'll make an addition to this post!
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ok I have A Lot of thoughts about the staircase confession (well really about Edwin's whole character arc, but all roads lead to rome) but for now I just wanna say that, yes, I was bracing myself for something to go terribly wrong when I first watched it, and yes, part of me was initially worried its placement might be an uncharacteristically foolish choice made in the name of Drama or Pacing or Making a Compelling Episode of Television but at the expense of narrative sense--
But I wanna say that having taken all that into account, and watched it play out, and sat with it - and honestly become rather transfixed by it - I really think it's a beautifully crafted moment and truly the only way that arc could've arrived at such a satisfying conclusion.
And if I had to pinpoint why I not only buy it but also have come to really treasure it, I'd have to put it down to the fact that it genuinely is a confession, and nothing else.
That moment is an announcement of what Edwin has come to understand about himself, but because it takes the form of a character admitting romantic feelings for such a close friend, I think it can be very easy, when writing that kind of thing, to imbue it with other elements like a plea or a request or even the start of a new relationship that, intentionally or not, would change the shape of the moment and can quickly overshadow what a huge deal the telling is all on its own. But that's not the case here. Since it is only a confession, unaccompanied by anything else, and since we see afterward how it was enough, evidently, to fix the strangeness that had grown between him & Charles, we're forced to understand that it was never Edwin's feelings that were actually making things difficult for him - it was not being able to tell Charles about them. 'Terrified' as he's been of this, Edwin learns that his feelings don't need to either disappear completely or be totally reciprocated in order for him to be able to return to the peace, stability, and security of the relationship with which he defines his existence - and the scale of that relief a) tells us a hell of a lot about Edwin as a character and b) totally justifies the way his declaration just bursts out of him at what would otherwise be such a poorly chosen moment, in my opinion.
Whether or not they are or ever could be reciprocated, Edwin's feelings are definitively proven not to be the problem here - only his potential choice to bottle it up - his repression - is. And where that repression had once been mainly involuntary, a product of what he'd been through, now that he's got this new awareness of himself, if he still fails to admit what he's found either to himself or to the one person he's so unambiguously close with, then that repression will be by his own choice and actions.
And he won't do that. Among other things, he's coming into this scene having just (unknowingly) absolved the soul of his own school bully and accidental killer by pointing out a fact that is every bit as central to his self-discovery as anything about his sexuality or his attraction to Charles is: the idea that "If you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell"
So narratively speaking, of course it makes sense that Edwin literally cannot get out of Hell until he stops punishing himself - and right now, the thing that's torturing him is something he has control over. It's not who he is or what he feels, but what he chooses to do with those feelings that's hurting him, and he's even already made the conscious choice to tell Charles about them, he was just interrupted. But now that they're back together and he's literally in the middle of an attempt to escape Hell, there is absolutely no way he can so much as stop for breath without telling Charles the truth. Even the stopping for breath is so loaded - because they're ghosts, they don't need to breathe, but also they're in Hell, so the one thing they can feel is pain, however nonsensical. And Edwin certainly is in pain. But whether he knows what he's about to do or not when he says he 'just needs a tick,' a breather is absolutely not what's gonna give him enough relief to keep climbing - it's fixing that other hurt, though, that will.
Like everything else in that scene, there's a lot of layers to him promising Charles "You don't have to feel the same way, I just needed you to know" - but I don't think that means it isn't also true on a surface level. It's the act of telling Charles that matters so much more than whatever follows it, and while that might have gone unnoticed if anything else major had happened in the same conversation, now we're forced to acknowledge its staggering and singular importance for what it is. The moment is well-earned and properly built up to, but until we see it happen in all its wonderful simplicity, and we see the aftermath (or lack thereof, even), we couldn't properly anticipate how much of a weight off Edwin's shoulders merely getting to share the truth with Charles was going to be, why he couldn't wait for a better, safer opportunity before giving in to that desire, or how badly he needed to say it and nothing else - and I really, really love the weight that act of just being honest, seen, and known is given in their story/relationship.
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wild to me to see posts like "wow everything in the tempest is named after shakespeare...emet you melodramatic bitch you sure loved theater". because the prospero-emet thing gets played up so hard in the english script and you can carry it so far!
like prospero is an asshole magician who, after being deposed by his brother as duke of milan, settles himself and his daughter on a remote island, enslaves the local spirits using his magic, and bitterly plots to reclaim his past glories. he rules through violence and deceit, and only survives and is reconciled when his plots reach their fruition and his brother is taken to his remote island and plots ensue and everyone decides he was totally right all along and they were huge dicks to him and they're sooooo sorry and he gets to go back and be duke again wow! and it's okay because he's like "i was only doing mean magic to get my rightful spot back and now i'm giving it up because magic is evil. :)"
the tempest is what emet wants his life to be. prospero is not a villain in the text of the tempest. he is barely treated as antagonistic by the text and framing of the play itself. all his abuses, his neglect and control of his daughter, his enslavement of caliban and ariel (local spirits/monsters/people of the island), his deception and plots against his brother, his abuse of magical powers (not awesome, from the pov of the contemporary audience), all that ultimately gets swept aside in the rightness of his return to milan and the warm feeling of the world being set to rights. prospero can't undo the years he spent on the island but they are ultimately a blip in his life before he returns to the rightful state of affairs. his abuse and enslavement of caliban, easily the worst thing he does in the play, is totally set aside when caliban goes "wow now i see how truly benevolent my master is. i love him and see the ways of christian good and i'm so, so appreciative he chose not to kill or beat me even though he totally could have and would have been in the right. he's so just and intelligent." everyone loves and forgives him and they all agree both his management of the island and his ultimate return are so good and so wise and so right.
emet comparing himself to the tempest (or being compared to it, depending on how you want to read the diegetic status of the place names) is absolute wishcasting. it is an attempt to manifest the happy ending he will never, ever get because his sins cannot and would not be forgiven in the way he wants. he wants to imagine himself as the righteous returned duke whose crimes, including the enslavement, abuse, and exploitation of those he saw as his rightful inferiors, were totally worth it, i promise. and if emet is prospero, the warrior of light is his caliban.
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