I think 90% of my gripes with how modern anime looks comes down to flat color design/palettes.
Non-cohesive, washed-out color palettes can destroy lineart quality. I see this all the time when comparing an anime's lineart/layout to its colored/post-processed final product and it's heartbreaking. Compare this pre-color vs. final frame from Dungeon Meshi's OP.
So much sharpness and detail and weight gets washed out and flattened by 'meh' color design. I LOVE the flow and thickness and shadows in the fabrics on the left. The white against pastel really brings it out. Check out all the detail in their hair, the highlights in Rin's, the different hues to denote hair color, the blue tint in the clothes' shadows, and how all of that just gets... lost. It works, but it's not particularly good and does a disservice to the line-artist.
I'm using Dungeon Meshi as an example not because it's bad, I'm just especially disappointed because this is Studio Trigger we're talking about. The character animation is fantastic, but the color design is usually much more exciting. We're not seeing Trigger at their full potential, so I'm focusing on them.
Here's a very quick and messy color correct. Not meant to be taken seriously, just to provide comparison to see why colors can feel "washed out." Top is edit, bottom is original.
You can really see how desaturated and "white fluorescent lighting" the original color palettes are.
[Remember: the easiest way to make your colors more lively is to choose a warm or cool tint. From there, you can play around with bringing out complementary colors for a cohesive palette (I warmed Marcille's skintone and hair but made sure to bring out her deep blue clothes). Avoid using too many blend mode layers; hand-picking colors will really help you build your innate color sense and find a color style. Try using saturated colors in unexpected places! If you're coloring a night scene, try using deep blues or greens or magentas. You see these deep colors used all the time in older anime because they couldn't rely on a lightness scale to make colors darker, they had to use darker paints with specific hues. Don't overthink it, simpler is better!]
We left him at the end of s1 with the knowledge that apocalypse was still coming. He'd saved the world for that day, but Heaven was still bent on destroying it. The ones with the power to burn everything were still inescapably loveless. It really looked like he and Crowley alone of all the Earth-walking beings would fight for the world.
And he loves the world so much. The opening scenes of him in the record shop, buying his Shostakovich 78s? The warmth toward Maggie and her music and her heart? The generosity, and the delight in the shared understanding, and the pleasure in the discovery that he could make her life better? That he could spare her pain, give her a little more time with her joys? He knows how fragile those are.
He wants to give that to the whole world.
He wants to believe he can lift the doom hanging over them all, banish it permanently. He is desperate to believe it. Even if he wasn't longing so fervently to be seen, approved, affirmed by God's word (I was so undone by his jealousy as he watched Job speak to her) -- even without that I can't imagine him not wavering at Heaven's offer, faced with the chance that he could use all Heaven's might to guard the world again and get it right this time.
And then he's offered that power with apparent warmth, and feigned approval, and the shameless claim that at last they understand. They hear what he's been trying desperately to tell them as long as he's lived in the world. They're telling him that he's finally made his point -- that they are proud he's tried so hard for so long.
So -- the ending is shattering. It is maddening. It's utterly unfair on Crowley. And I didn't see it coming, and yet.
Aziraphale is a guardian. He really will have to see for himself that power won't love what's good; there is no way to make the world safe forever.
this truly is the hardest question. :( but after much consideration, I think Endless Halloween Night wins out for me, because it's nonstop Characters Being Silly the whole way through. the whole thing is just lots of these little dorks having the most ridiculous interactions, which is always my favorite! and of course the big twist is SO delightfully stupid and doubles down SO hard that it becomes AMAZING and I 100% unironically adore it. AND it's Halloween! everyone is in their cute little costumes and having a spooky adventure! it's great!
however, I am ALSO a big fan of the Harveston event! how can I not be! everyone is wearing comfy winter outfits and getting along really weirdly well with Epel's grandma and he's getting a little worried about that! my terrible loud son sews a plush squirrel and then gives it a silly little nickname and refuses to leave it behind when it breaks! the ending shot with the sled! I LOVE IT.
You woke up in the middle of the night. You blinked your eyes open, thinking about rearranging yourself so you could drift back to sleep. And then you noticed the tuft of white hair that was peeking out above the edge of your mattress.
You reached out sleepily, burying your fingers in it.
The head shifted as Mammon looked over at you. It was dark in your room, but you could still see his gold-blue eyes. They seemed somehow dull, as though he wasn’t fully aware of himself.
“Mammon?” you whispered into the quiet. “Are you okay? What are you doing down there?”
Mammon was leaning against the side of your bed, arms around his knees. He shook his head a little, causing your fingers to ruffle through his hair. “Don’t worry about it, MC. Go back to sleep.”
You sighed. Like you could actually do that with him here like this. You sat up. “Don’t do that to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
Mammon didn’t move and he didn’t say anything, only sat there on your floor.
You pulled yourself out of the bed and sat in front of him. You leaned your cheek against one of his knees and looked up into his face. “Talk to me. Please.”
Mammon lifted his head and you were shocked to see the pain in his eyes. “Sorry, MC. Didn’t mean to wake ya.”
“Mammon…”
Mammon leaned his head back against the mattress. “Just had a nightmare, that’s all. Couldn’t go back to sleep, so I came here.”
You could tell you weren’t going to get any more out of him than that. But it didn’t matter. That was enough.
You stood up again and grabbed his hands, pulling him to his feet. He froze as you wrapped your arms around him, pressing him into you. For a moment, you could feel him trembling, but then he melted into your embrace. His arms enclosed you, his forehead resting on your shoulder.
You stayed that way for a long time, unwilling to let him go until he stopped shaking in your arms.
Eventually, you felt his body relax, enough that you felt he might be able to sleep again. You extracted yourself from him gently before tugging him into the bed with you.
Mammon was your guardian demon, the one who was always looking out for you, always by your side. But sometimes the guardian needed protection, too. And you would always be there to comfort him, even if he wasn’t sure how to ask for it.
I just wanted to showcase a doodle of how much bigger Viceroy is than Gabriel. I'm sorry, Hawkmoth is a good six inches taller than Gabriel, what makes anyone think that Tom using the butterfly miraculous wouldn't gain another foot and he's already built like a shit brickhouse. not to mention he's a working man so he can already lift a house
okay i will take a break from drawing the sassy bisexual doctor who hates living in an undersupplied camp in an active warzone to draw the sassy gay doctor who hates living in an undersupplied camp in an active warzone. nihil novi sub sole et cetera
wednesday was the 1000th day since the fateful afternoon my roommate asked to see the space cowboy show i apparently used to talk about a lot and i wanted to do a big illustrated piece to celebrate but my job keeps me from drawing anything at all !!!!!!!
anyways i've been missing vash so so so so so bad u guys can anybody hear me it's so dark in here.
lines also cuz i really like how his hair turned out :3 reminds me of the couple shoujo manga i read as a kid teehee
When a person belonging to a minority group says or does something bad, you are, of course, free to criticize them. But it still does not give you the right to be a bigot. Noah Schnapp sharing stupid, careless, and uninformed geopolitical opinions deserves to be called out, but it does not mean that you suddenly get to tell him that he should have been gassed by Hitler or killed by anti-Jewish hate groups or terrorists — both things I've read on Twitter and on Tumblr. It does not justify you calling him homophobic or antisemitic slurs.
"But he deserves it!" you argue. First of all, why do you think so? What makes it okay for any person to be given the green signal to get called slurs, or have people advocate for them to get hatecrimed? And more importantly, you are only signaling to your Jewish friends that you are actually capable of antisemitism. Same thing goes with your queer friends, or any friends belonging to a minority group. When you justify one form of bigotry, even to just one person — you justify all forms of bigotry.
So if you find yourself doing any of these, ask yourself why it's so easy to slip into bigoted rhetoric instead of simply focusing your criticism on what a person did/said.
I want you to ride my strap. I want to be able to watch all the sexy faces you make as you take control of your own pleasure. I want to watch how hard you work to get yourself off. I want you to use my tits has handles while you grind your hips against me. Every once in a while, I want to buck into you just to hear you gasp from the unexpected pleasure. When you start to get tired, I want to use my hands to help guide your hips up and down. Then, when I know you're at your limit, I want to thrust into you as hard and fast as I can. I'll keep thrusting inside of you until you finally cum all over my strap.
I understand Garp, I truly do. But personally if my grandson were about to be executed just for existing after years of asking himself if he deserves to live, idk, I think I would've gone on a fucking rampage and had killed everybody