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lastoneout · 2 years

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Got asked if I had any tips for new artists during my stream today and I figured I'd put them here too:

Draw, seriously, just do it. This is the hardest part and also the most crucial. Just run at it screaming and refuse to back down. You just gotta do it.

Always do your wrist/arm/shoulder stretches before drawing and make sure to take breaks to stretch/re-center yourself if you've been going for a few hours or more! (Here's the stretches I do, and they help with gaming and writing and desk work too, they're just a good idea all around!)

Try to draw less from the wrist and more from the shoulder(move your arm more and your wrist less basically). That and stretches will help you avoid carpal tunnel which is never fun.

Consistency is only something you need to worry about if you're like, working in the industry/doing some types of commissions(like an twitch emote bundle or a comic book). If you're just starting out or only drawing for yourself it literally doesn't matter. Like, I don't think I've ever drawn a character exactly the same way twice, it's fine.

Don't do warm up drawings, do warm up scribbles. Doodles circles and squares and lines and swirls until you feel nice and lose, then start actually drawing.

If you're between 50-90% done with something and you REALLLY start to hate it, keep going. You just gotta power through, cuz chances are it's perfectly fine(or even really good) and your monkey brain is being a jackass coward chugging that impostor syndrome juice.

If you finish and you still hate it put it away until tomorrow or the day after and then look again. Never EVER trust your negative opinions about your art(or anything) if it's after like 8pm.

Re: the above points, as an exampke last night I HATED my new pngtuber model that I'd spent literally all day on. Went to bed and in the morning was like "oh this is good actually". Trust me, tired burnt out you is not a good judge of quality, especially the quality of something you've been staring at for like 4-5 hours.

If, after all that, you still hate it, that's okay too. It's a bummer, but don't try to force yourself to like something just cuz you spent a lot of time on it. Chalk it up to experience and move on to the next thing!

Do everything in your power to not compare yourself to others. It won't get you anywhere. Instead learn to look at other people's art and find what you like about it and try to break it down or do it that way yourself. Dont fully copy/trace ofc, but really think about how something looks and see if you can figure out why you like it and/or how it's done.

OH MY GOD USE REFERENCES. Anyone who says not to use references is talking out of their ass. You think figure drawing classes are bad?? That artists draw from life just for shits and giggles?? No, its because you need to know what shit looks like to draw it!!! USE REFERENCES!!!

Same with youtube tutorials, especially for learning to use digital art programs. Do take everything with a grain of salt ofc(we've all seen the "masculine vs feminine eyes" shit or the trash trend of "I fix my viewer's bad art uwu" ignore that crap) but you can learn all kinds of shit for free on youtube.

If you can feel yourself burning out fucking stop drawing a take a break. Even if you're in the middle of something, or part of you wants to keep drawing. Burn outs suck and it's gonna take a lot longer to get over it if you push yourself until you crash instead of just acknowledging that you're hitting your limit and stopping for a few days. The art will be there when you get back, your health should always come first!

If someone tells you thick line art or anime style or whatever is bad, ignore them. All art is subjective. Draw what you want how you want. Even if it's all thick line art or you stick to sketches or only do anime stuff or chibis or humans or furries or goddamn stick figures just draw literally whatever. If this is just a hobby for you there's no reason to push yourself. Draw what makes you happy, fuck everyone else.

Anyway that's all I've got for now, might add more tomorrow when I'm less tired(and I encourage additions for other artists as I'm self taught and had to learn most of this the hard way and thus I'm sure I've missed stuff) but yeah, just draw my dudes, this is supposed to be fun. You deserve to have fun.

#art

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comicaurora · 1 year

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Sorry if this is a weird question but how long did it take for you to start making art you felt was good enough, at least at the time? I have a lot of ideas for projects I want to make but I'm slowed down by not quite being at a level I'm happy with for professional endeavours. Wondering if I should quit while I'm ahead and just hire an artist I like.

Hoo. Good question.

It's hard to keep track of, honestly. I think every artist is going to feel a degree of "this could be better" about anything they make, and if that's all you're keeping track of it can feel like no progress is being made - but in hindsight, I think "this could be better" means a lot of different things, and what it means for my work has changed over time.

One of my earliest art-related memories is having a very clear image in my head of a pencil sketch I wanted to make (a family portrait of some wizards, a mom and dad flanking a young daughter) and then being immensely frustrated that what I produced was a pale, inexpert shadow of that image. The starting point I was at was "this doesn't look right and I don't know why," and I stayed there for a long time, even as I got overall better.

The first time I remember trying and failing to emulate a specific cartoon style, it was the manga Steam Detectives - I'd mostly been exposed to newspaper comics and scientific illustration, so I had never seen that sharp-angled straight-lined manga style before. There was a liveliness to it I couldn't capture, and that frustrated me. At this point I could see what was wrong, but couldn't yet correct it - my unconfident pencil sketching wasn't going to produce the same kind of three-dimensionality and flow as the brush strokes used in the, in the same way that a traced figure can look strangely odd and off-balance because it's only mimicking the outlines. At this point I'd hit "this doesn't look right and I know why, but I'm not sure how to fix it."

At that point, practice was kind of the only solution - unconfident linework can only be improved by honing the muscle memory and confidence of the artist, which I didn't know at the time or do on purpose but ended up happening anyway, especially once I got going on the channel and was regularly doing dozens to hundreds of drawings per project.

I do remember the first time I thought "oh, that's actually better than I expected" - I had broken my clavicle and my right arm was in a sling, and my art teacher encouraged me to try drawing something with my left instead. I am very much not ambidextrous and my lines were spidery and shaky, but when I stepped back at the end, the thing I'd tried to sketch - a portrait of a regal-looking elf man - actually wasn't too bad. The muscle memory in my right hand was completely absent from my left, but apparently my basic understanding of shapes and shadows had come through and made something that got across the gist of what I wanted. That was the first time I felt "this doesn't look right, but I already knew that, and what it does do is actually pretty solid."

At some point in the process of cranking out channel illustrations, and later chibi character commissions, without even noticing I hit a baseline level of confidence in what I was doing. Certain things got easier because I was doing them a lot more. I stopped thinking about whether a facial expression was communicating exactly what I wanted it to, stopped spending long stretches of time trying to refine poses - because in those specific areas I was no longer experiencing "this doesn't look right and I don't know why." I'd draw a face, realize it could look angrier, redraw the eyes and brows to be angrier, then move on. I'd block out a pose, decide the leg didn't look right, redraw it, line it and move on. It wasn't that I was nailing everything first try, it's that I'd had enough time and practice to quickly diagnose what wasn't working and quickly try something else to correct it.

Instead, I was thinking "this doesn't look right and I don't know why" about other things. Trees, buildings, figure shading, fire, water, metal textures. I still didn't feel ready to do the comic in earnest, but I'd started doing digital illustrations of the characters and mock-up pages/covers, and I kept finding problems in the composition. It didn't look right and I didn't know why. If I didn't know why, I couldn't fix it. A lot of that process boiled down to redrawing stuff until it managed to look right, then trying to reverse-engineer what had worked about that. I'd accidentally draw the most perfect torso and try to figure out what magic combination of lines had made that work. And again, it was a slow process, almost unnoticeable from my perspective, because I just gradually stopped worrying so much about unsolvable artistic problems because the solutions had just arisen with practice and experience. The background looks wack - it's probably under-shaded, darken some corners to make it match the foreground. This texture looks off - probably needs some particle effects to help give it detail. Etc etc.

At present, I very rarely think "this doesn't look right and I don't know why." I still have moments of "this doesn't look right" - almost constantly, probably - but they aren't noteworthy because I've had enough practice improvising solutions that it turns into a brief experimental phase before I fix whatever was bugging me and move on. It doesn't mean it's perfect, it just means whatever problems or places it could be improved are either subjective choices that are fine either way, or small mistakes I don't notice at the time. The process of error-correction and bug-fixing becomes quick and painless enough that I hardly think about how I used to spend ages agonizing over something that was wrong that I couldn't make look right.

The point I eventually got to could probably be best described as "I could make this better if I wanted - do I want to do that?"

Making a comic like this, it's very important for me to consider the value of pouring too much into any one page. If I vastly overdesign anything, I'm going to need to keep up that level of design every time it shows up. If I drew every forest shot by hand-drawing every single tree I'd never get anything done. If something looks off and I know the solution would be more detailing and more texturing, sometimes I'll do that - filigree and particles and all that good sauce - but sometimes I'll just try a few things until I find a shortcut that makes it look fine to my eyes. Art can always be more polished, so that's not really a metric for completeness or ready-ness - I really do think the most helpful metric is whether you're regularly struggling because you can see something is wrong but you can't figure out what. If you consistently know what's wrong - or, more accurately and less judgmentally, what could be polished if you wanted to polish it - you're probably in a pretty good spot.

#asks #aurora #art stuff

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outlastisms · 23 days

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Jeff Woods Knitted Plush Project Plan [WIP]

A small doll-style plush of Jeff Woods. I currently have the head done and need to restart the body as well as make the clothes. He is going to be stuffed with pulled-apart cotton balls and he should be around 5 inches tall when his body is done.

What I have so far looks like this;

The rejected body (it was all a bit too big);

I don't have a mock-up or anything because I started on him impulsively and completely winged it! And by completely, I mean completely. The inside of his head is a mess, but I suppose that would technically be what You'd call canon-accuracy, so score one for me.

His head itself is just two squares; 10 stitches 10 rows and 9 stitches 13 rows respectively, with the longer one being the back of his head. I folded the corners in and stitched them into a kind of round pocket-like shape? There truly wasn't method to my madness but I figured it would be covered by the hair if it looked wonky and I was right!

After creating his head, I stitched him some eyes and a malicious smile and he was finally ready to begin his hair-growth journey. If anyone would like to know his secret (it's not Maybelline) please let me know and I'll make a separate tutorial on how I did the hair at some point because knowing my long-winded way of explaining things this post would be even longer than it's already going to be if I went through it in full (most of my project plan posts will be made at the beginning of my projects, so that kind of thing would usually be in an update post/progress check; however I started this project before I made this blog so here we are.)

For the body, legs and arms I'm definitely going to make them all smaller. In my first draft they were much too big and I realised halfway through putting them all together that it just absolutely would not have worked with the proportions. It's more of a "chibi" style overall, so I'm going to have to shoot for something a bit smaller than the body to make it come together properly. After adjustments the body will hopefully progress smoothly, since the sewing for that is all quite simple.

I have no doubt that the clothes will be fashioned just as haphazardly as the head when we get to that point, but it's worked so far so hopefully no hiccups; one thing I'll say is he's probably not built for durability so I'll have to be somewhat careful with him when he's done.

#outlastisms #diy projects #knitting #project planning #creepypasta #jeff the killer #jeff woods #plush making

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goatofgehenna · 6 months

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Something that has always bothered me.. the idea that Cloud and Zidane are both canonically 173cm.. so roughly 5'7/5'8

Here's the more realistic depiction of Cloud. I could say, yes this person is about 5'8..

Here's a realistic depiction of Zidane... Yes I know he looks short in dissidia but honestly if you look at his model in the original game he has similarly 'short' proportions due to the chibi style.. despite the fact that Kuja and Steiner in the same game don't read visually as that short in that style..

Height by heads chart.. there's many ways to tell how tall a person is.. for example, studying their isolated bone length may give some indication.

My suggestion... Make Zidane like 5'5 in realistic proportions.

In dissidia he honestly looks smaller than this (4'5??) but in my opinion it's too small.. even looking at the Amano art.. it just doesn't look like Zidane anymore at that height.. him having a short stature has kind of become a part of his overall appearance at this point.

His fighting style would translate so well into 'spider monkey' like movements if shown more actively..

Just, make him short. That's all lol 😆

#final fantasy 9 #final fantasy ix #ffix #ff9 #final fantasy #zidane tribal #zidane

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monstersinthecosmos · 2 years

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Why is Armand depicted as looking like he's 12 in so many fanworks? I know 17 is young, but I don't remember myself or any of my classmates looking like fetuses in high school. I can't remember anything in the books describing him as looking like a little kid either so where did it come from?

Ngl I'm fine with any casting that doesn't follow this fanon description because I don't want to see anybody who looks that young sucking and fucking.

Gonna be real with you, I've personally never seen fanart where he looks 12, so I'm not sure where you're seeing it.

What I have seen, overwhelmingly, is that most artists in this fandom don't use veristic art styles. I've been reblogging Armand art for years and there's not a ton of realism in here lol. If you see any of these random Armands and think he looks 12, I feel like that's a You thing.

TVL does describe him as being chubby and there's a handful of artists who draw that a lot! Like having baby fat in his face still, that's so tragic lol. A lot of characters describe him as cherubic. I think the two extremes of Armand art are either his chubby face or his complete waification. I think it's also always worth asking the creator why they depict him as younger. It could be a point of catharsis to exaggerate for their own storytelling purposes, it could also be their style or level of technical skill. I'm not the person to answer that for everybody.

I see this conversation in anime fandoms a lot, too, this idea that the art or animation style is so far removed from the human form that it becomes whatever the artist says it is. And you as the viewer make those decisions, as well, even if it's subconscious. Like lol -

I reblogged this pic of Louis the other day, too; does he look 12 because he's chibi or can you look at it and understand it's just cute and that he's a grown man?

It really gets into this kinda hairy conversation about art being coded and I don't think you can draw those lines without falling into some problematic traps. I can't recall what the anime title was but a while back there was this big controversy with fandom antis upset that this adult character was "child coded" because she was short and had small tits. It gets into this area of saying that women are children if they have small tits. In Armand's case, it gets into rules like "skinny people don't look like adults" or "people with chubby faces don't look like adults" and whether you're intending to say this or not in your ask, in Fandom Wank Olympics this conversation always concludes with: You are a predator if you're attracted to someone who is too skinny or who has small tits or a chubby face. Likewise, if you are too skinny or have small tits or a chubby face you do not have the agency to enter adult relationships because everyone attracted to you is a predator. Same goes for the infantilization of short people.

(Cough, looking at you AMC and how Claudia is doomed for having small tits.)

So anyway not to get heavy but that's where it sounded like your message was going.

In the end, it's art, it's 2D, I'm not sure where you're seeing 12 year olds in the Armand artwork but I'd wonder if that's your own lens and your own bias. I've been a hardcore loser Armand stan for most of my life and I haven't seen this fanon that people treat him like he's 12. The opposite, in fact.

Fanart of a vampire who has never existed does not hurt anybody. You cannot victimize Armand, he is not real. So whether people make him look 12 on purpose or not ........... who cares?

As far as the show goes, they hired a 19 year old for Claudia and made it obvious that they're not willing to work with minors, so I wouldn't worry about it. They're not going to hire a 12 year old. And like you said, 17 year olds don't look like that anyway, so I'm not sure what the issue is.

As a final bonus meta point: I think it's funny when people get grossed out by Armand (or Claudia's) age because it's exactly the reason their stories are horrifying. You're supposed to be uncomfortable lol. Their lives are difficult because people think they are children. Armand manages because he looks a bit older, but every character describes him as being so disarmingly beautiful because he seems young, when he's in fact so cold and shrewd and dangerous. That dichotomy is where the flavor's at, baby! That's the point! He's 500 years old bro!

But if it makes you uncomfortable I'd suggest just blocking artists whose styles look too young. Curate your dash! I know sometimes a blocked OP shows up in reblogs and whatever but I'd suggest muting the OP's name on XKit to prevent that, it works really well for me!

#fandom wank lol #also the requisite dig at AMC but they obviously don't give a fuck about anyone's fanon LMAO

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my01x · 7 days

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i really love your art and your style is beautiful even if you hate it, as someone who struggles to draw and can’t afford the money or time to spend on art classes it pains me every time you call your artwork ugly or bad, it’s not bad at all i can give you my failed attempts to show you what truly bad art looks like

that’s to say, it’s painful watching a talented person like you constantly mocking what i can’t even come close to achieving

truthfully at one point i thought about giving up on art and just making my ideas with ai for a while but i couldn’t bring myself to it or to give up, i want to improve my own drawing skills and reach your level someday

my words probably mean nothing right now as a talentless non artist but when i do reach your level i’ll make sure to come back and say how beautiful our art is

Oh anon don't say that, you'll make me cry wtf 😭

I call them ugly because they're mostly all doodles where I don't stress too much in making them perfect. Two years ago I burned out because I tried to make perfect drawings all the times and I was drowing in commissions. Money are good don't get me wrong, what I earned was enough to pay rent, that's why every drawing needed to be perfect but 3 years of constant work quickly f*cked up my mental health. Now I feel like I regressed but I forced this regression. I'm trying to help myself accept my "ugly drawings" too. I know what I can do I'm just living life lazily now and try to enjoy art at its core. Drawing for the sake of drawing like I did when I was just a child.

AI art is a bit of a touchy topic but it's never too late to start drawing, if you struggle with that start with something small like chibis, doodle on paper, there's so many ways to make art, really, I even saw someone making yarn dolls and taking artistic photographs of them. Drawing is just one of the many ways someone can express themselves. I believe in you anon, if it's something you really like someday you'll find the right way to express your creativity

#ask

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birder-of-remnant · 10 months

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Here is my list of the top 12 obscure RWBY villains (part 1 of 2). While RWBY is an expansive series complete with complex characters and numerous mainline villains, there are also a surprising number of rabbit holes and side series that introduce a range of lesser-known Ne'er-Do-Wells! This is just my take on some of the more interesting scumbags in the RWBY universe outside of the main narrative, starting with some of my least favorites and working my way up. How I rank them is pretty arbitrary to be honest. Spoilers Ahoy! Naturally, this list also contains several spoilers for the various RWBY comics, manga, games, and splinter video series. Continue at your own peril!

12. Starro - Lowest on my list is Starro… the evil starfish… from outer space. Seriously, this is a RWBY villain, no joke. Anyone out there who is a fan of the DC universe may recognize this character as one of the original villains for the Justice League. For those who are not (like me), this came as a bit of a… surprise. Starro serves as the primary villain in the first RWBY x Justice League comic book where he starts the first several years of his time on Remnant hypnotizing fish. Eventually, he gets bored of exerting his domain over fish and other sea life, and decides to conquer the world by building an army of starfish-fanatical minions, including Phyrra and the other members of JNPR, who must all bear his starfish emblem to strike the fear of starfish into their foes. In the end, the Justice League manages to overthrow this oversized echinoderm (with a little help from Team RWBY). Honestly, I don't know whether to laugh or cry looking at Starro. I will give them credit for… uniqueness. I do not think that there will ever be another starfish supervillain. Still, as cringy as Starro is, it is still far less cringy than seeing Ruby flirting with superman IN THE FIRST 5 PAGES OF THE BOOK (shiver). But that is just my personal feeling, no worries if there is anyone out there who likes Red Cap or Starro, I promise that I do not cast judgement.

11. Vermillion - Honestly, I cannot say much about Vermillion at this point since I have yet to watch season 2 of the Grimm Campaign (mostly because I do not want to buy a Rooster Teeth subscription). So I cannot place him any higher than number 11 on this list, but I would recommend watching the Grimm Campaign. The Grimm Campaign is a D&D style RWBY adventure played by Sherry Shawcross and company as they explore a conspiracy in the Mistral city of Kuchinashi. This semi-canon RWBY side-series follows Team SAFR as they investigate reports of bizarre Grimm and unusual criminal activity. Vermillion is only foreshadowed in season 1 but serves as the main antagonist in the second season.

10. Edward Caspian - Okay, he may not technically be a villain. But this character from 'RWBY: After The Fall' still makes some pretty questionable choices that bring pain and misery in roughly equal proportions. Being kind by nature, he may mean well but he still makes Qrow's bad luck semblance seem like mild indigestion (yes, I know, but it is still his decision for them to be there).

9. Deery & Perry - The only two antagonists on this list from the main series. Both are members of the White Fang that kept popping up during the good ol' Beacon Days. Perry is perhaps the more recognizable of the two due to wearing glasses. Both first appeared during the White Fang recruitment rally in season 2 and played minor roles during the Mt Glenn incident. While Perry's fate following that literal train wreck is not known, Deery apparently escaped and could often be seen next to Adam in season 3, even participating in the Fall of Beacon. As with many other villains, they probably believed that their extremist actions were just. Honorable mentions go to Floyd the Geist from the Chibi universe for this spot.

8. Hei Xiong - A minor villain in the book 'Roman Holiday' alongside Neopolitan's father, Xiong was the biggest and scariest crime lord in Vale until Roman came along and showed him the door. In terms of personality, he is kind of your standard mafia boss-type persona. Although not as brazen as Lil Miss Malachite, he ruled with a subtle hand and a keen wit, unlike his son Junior from the main series. Although the book is excellent, Xiong himself is somewhat of a plain-vanilla type of character and so I placed him down here at number 8.

7. Bram Thornmane - Okay, perhaps not as obscure as some of the other villains on this list but still not one of the show's staple boogeymen. Bram is an antagonist from the game 'RWBY: Arrowfell.' He wraps himself in a cloak of false nobility and lies to manipulate others into doing his dirty work. Unstable and egotistical, he seeks only vengeance over a petty grudge. Some people just can't handle rejection. Overall, I found his character somewhat forgettable but at least he puts up a good fight.

This ends Part 1! Thank you to anyone crazy enough to actually read this. Sorry for any spoilers! Though I promise you are not missing much with Starro. I will be posting Part 2 in a while.

#RWBY #greenlight volume 10 #RWBY spoilers #villians #top 10 #Starro the Starfish #idk

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vestaloflight · 15 days

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7, 11, & 21 for the art asks :3c

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate Oh man, graphic design if that counts? Like, taking things and putting them together to get an idea across? Liiike I can edit a nice picture, or make a pretty palette but I really have no idea what to do to make a nice graphic that's visually appealing and informative for whatever point you're trying to make. I don't know if that really counts as a medium, but my eyes roll back into my brain when I think about making banners or web designing... But one that's maybe more sense-making, 3D visual arts. Like... paper-craft. Sculpting. Stuff like that. It's so neat and I do not know how to do it at all. I started doing resin-work but that still feels wholly different since I'm just picking colors and mixing stuff and pouring them into a mold. Starting from scratch? Wtf, I don't know how people do that and I'll be forever envious. 11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what I don't have anything specific that I listen to except it's like, always music, never podcasts or audio-books or anything. And I don't always listen to something sometimes I just zone out to the sound of whatever is on TV or the hum of the room. Sometimes I might get inspiration from a song and play that on repeat while I'm working, and sometimes I just let my "liked" collection shuffle. 21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways I think I like... pretty much Every art style that's not like mine... but let's see... I love a style that's got a lot of background work to it - I am TRYING to put backgrounds into my stuff when it makes sense but oh god it does not come naturally to me and some of my fav artists just make it seem so EASY... obviously it took loads of practice to make it look easy but still it just blows me away how simple or complex it can be and I'm just over here like "what color bubbles should I place randomly in the bg". Also LOVE a cartoon-y style. I'd say my art tends to be a pretty even blend of "anime" as my mom calls it and realism, but I have a REALLY hard time leaning into one or the other. Like how do people draw chibis. I don't get it. I can't make it happen. Idk if this is even really the right way to answer this, but it's what I'm doing. X'D

#thank u ;w;#fun to think about art from like an outside perspective

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poelya · 1 month

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Thank you for blessing my timeline with the beauty that is 💫Marc Spector💫 now I wanna watch moon knight all over again/pos

Oscar Isaac characters stop being so blorbo shaped challenge.

I'm just doing my part o7. I had another really bad day today, and I was like. Fuck it, I'm rewatching my emotional support episode of Moon Knight. And then whaddya know? I started feeling better (as my love @dameronalone pointed out, it's almost like Marc's a spin lmao).

Anyway I ended up pausing the episodes so many times either to cry about him or to giggle, twirl my hair, and kick my feet about how pretty he is, so....giffing felt like a no-brainer, especially as an additional little pick-me-up.

Finally, I don't think it's a setting Oscar can turn off tbh. Now if I like - only had Poe and Marc as blorbos, I could. Yeah alright, that's fair. They're both very distinctly but overlapping Nym archetypes (don't ask me about why I think they're similar unless you want me to look like that Charlie Day meme). Hell, even Miguel I can like....that's filed solidly under Spider-Man, y'know?

But *shakes box and a bunch of extra oscar characters fall out, chibi style* I fear many more of them are also so....so shaped, yknow?

#me abt the rest of them: i don't know what i'm feeling specifically but there's a lot of it and it's maybe a LITTLE gay #specifically i am thinking of steven and rydal and santi. mostly santi.#i've been thinking abt him here lately. not sure why. is it bc triple frontier a summertime movie? idk #. maybe it's close to when i first watched it or smth lmao #anyway #asks #userorb #i support and encourage all mk rewatches.#because i'm a filthy enabler and that man is my. husband? partner? i hate the word boyfriend i'm not sullying him with that word #he's my marc.#there that works.

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littleturtlefish · 7 months

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Sigh 😔 at this point, I might as well just post my art classwork since I haven't been doing any art in my free time...

Not art-related at all but I've been (kinda) reading Komi-San Can't Communicate and I wanna post my thoughts on it since I like it (I do have some personal complaints though) but I have absolutely no way to put these thoughts out aside from here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Somewhat related but have you seen how weird some Komi-San fans are??????? Knowing the genre and all, I shouldn't be surprised, but still...i wouldnt want to share my thoughts with some fans either way

Forewarning, literally the only manga I was ever fully invested in was Mob Psycho 100 and I haven't even touched the Komi-San anime. It's also been a while since I reread the entire manga so my memory may suck, my apologies. There will be many paragraphs, my double apologies.

[SPOILERS FOR EVERYTHING UP TO CHAPTER 412]

Overall, I think the manga is really cute. I don't read manga that much but I'd still say that it very much fits the slice-of-life genre well. Maybe too well 🙂 but I'll talk about that later. It's a great manga to read for fluff and just to have a good time.

Side-note: I'll be talking about the one-shot for a bit and when I say "current" Komi, I really just mean Komi throughout her 2nd/3rd year.

First things first, I absolutely fell in love with the concept and the one-shot (...first chapter?). The idea of a character with crippling social anxiety slowly coming out of their shell with the help and support of others? Fantastic :D And jeez, the art style change is REALLY obvious once you look at the one-shot. Honestly, I really wish the entire manga kept it u_u the dead-inside eyes Komi had actually showed why everyone was so scared of her. Her cute-ified/chibi look isn't as intimidating and only shows that people were scared just because she kept staring at them (which is fair lol, but her original look makes more sense). Tadano, though... I would prefer his current look compared to his old one LOL. Style aside, I'm gonna talk about this specific little thing that truly made me binge this manga: the diner and hospital talk. Technically two scenes but they share one thing and that is that Tadana and Komi sit facing AWAY from each other. I don't think I ever really struggled with social anxiety but when I was younger, I had a very hard time talking to people while making eye contact. I know chronlogically that the hospital talk is before the diner one but as a reader (since diner scene is shown first), seeing that issue be addressed without it ever being directly brought up was just...really sweet. I understood it right away. Hell, even when it was noticed and brought up in the hospital talk, Tadano was such a caring person to suggest the idea of facing away from one another i straight up wouldve cried if someone did that for me irl moreonmylovefortadanolater— One-shot Komi is also pretty interesting because she actually IS able to talk, she just varies between saying very little to saying a lot. I'm no psychiatrist but personally, I felt that could've been more relatable BUT that's not a complaint because the manga isn't obligated to accurately portray every single thing about the disorder (especially since it's clear that this manga is focusing on being lighthearted so of course it won't necessarily go into the very heavy stuff). I find current Komi's trait of using a notebook to speak much more interesting but I was shocked on the relateability of one-shot Komi, haha.

Okay, now for the actual manga. I'll admit, I don't really have much to say in the beginning portion purely because I don't really remember much 🙃 The chalkboard scene was really cute but I'll just be saying that for any scene with Komi and Tadano alone, tbh. Komi and her reactions in social situations are mood as always. Tadano was a KIND, CARING, and LOVING lil guy and all he got was death threats smh. Yamai.

She's part of a bigger issue.

In general, I love seeing Komi and Tadano together. Together relationship-wise and also just simply interacting with each other. Their relationship is SO adorable and I always reread their pining moments :ↄ I understand the dislike for the trope of an extraordinary woman falling in love with Some Guy™ but I like it here because while Tadano truly is Some Guy™, he's a genuinely nice person and not even just basic-human-decency nice; he goes out of his way for people. He also sees Komi as a friend before all else, too. Like, yes, he finds her attractive and, yes, she is literally his girlfriend now, but they still share a lot of platonic moments together and just act like a couple of besties ✨

Manbagi is also a main character I can't help but adore. I found it fascinating that the love triangle, while still a competition, was lighthearted and friendly. I've personally never seen one portrayed like that so I'm really impressed! The love triangle showcased Komi and Manbagi's friendship so much that, despite not being a fan of OT3s, I genuinely just wanted both of them to date Tadano lmao and I truly believed that it would've worked out!!! I still do; all three of those characters have chemistry with each other! Anyway, love triangle arc aside, I'm happy that she's at least getting her happy ending with that one dude :)

Speaking of that dude, the side characters are cool. My favorites are Hiki and Komitani. I like the name puns and some side stories are pretty sweet (like with Hiki's). I forgor their names but surprisingly, I liked those two bitchy girls who "bullied" Komi (quotes because it wasn't that serious). How they acted towards Komi and the reasons why they acted that way (AKA their assumptions about Komi doing it for attention or whatnot) was a nice change from the standard character reaction towards Komi. Yeah, they were still dicks and I especially didn't like how everyone quickly forgave that one tsun (?) girl, but they were a refreshing deviation from status quo. Those good examples aside, there...are a lot of side stories to the point I get tired of them :U I mean, I assume that's just a genre thing because I have read other slice-of-life manga before but would drop them because the side stories were too much >.> Clearly, I didn't really drop this manga since I'm talking about it but 400+ chapters feels like a lot to me (especially when a good portion of those chapters are side stories) and it's still ongoing, which I typically wouldn't even touch since I like endings to a story :u It feels like trudging through mud sometimes but I gotta get through it or I won't see my favs Komi and Tadano ✊😔 The side stories really would've been a dealbreaker if not for those two.

Ah, and finally: sexual fanservice. God, I hate it so much. Both, in the manga and in general. I hate how it's prevalent in so much media, I hate how it is used as a tool to attract audiences, and I hate how it works in attracting those audiences. Yes, the manga has many, many instances of sexual fanservice but I've just accepted that I can never escape it. Yamai and her sexual harassment. Close-up shots of teenage chests. Hiki being a literal middle schooler at one point. Almost every character's sexualization of Komi, no matter their age. All make me disappointed, but not surprised. You gotta make money somehow ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I am surprised that Tadano and Komi's relationship isn't sexualized all that much. Maybe I missed some things but the only sexual things I can recall are the "Tadano unlocked a new fetish" moments (which happens only twice? Thrice?) and other characters asking/teasing on how far they've gone. I like that. It makes their relationship very wholesome and also reinforces the fact that Tadano sees Komi as an actual person.

Kinda related to fanservice but I very much dislike the current art style. Y'know that meme of anime girls being compared to pugs? That's exactly what happened to Komi's face. Why is it so scrunched up??? To be fair, this applies to every character so I guess there's consistency... Her sharp edges in her hair are kinda jarring, though, because she has these really detailed eyes but her face is small and her hair, although detailed, is a geometric shape and all of these factors do not look good together. I'm fine with Tadano's design because it gives him personality, which...may or may not be a good thing, character-wise? Like, yeah, he's supposed to be some normal guy and all, which his original design perfectly portrays that bUT ITS SO BORINGGG. I like his sharp edges! It's better on him since he isn't as detailed as Komi. Anyway, I say this is related to fanservice because, while yes, this art style is much easier to draw with than with the old style, Komi's prominent eyes and tiny face surely must've been influenced by some other factor other than time management :U but that's just my theory. Final note: this art style kinda ruined the Tadano confession scene for me a bit because the close-up of Komi's face was...not good, imo.

One last thing: YAY THEY KISSED!!!!!11!°!! When I stopped reading, I stopped at the end of the Kawai arc since I do not like being left on cliffhangers and there were only some chapters left at the time. I heard about the kiss scene at Chapter 411 and so, I only read the chapters that led up to that scene instead of picking up where I last was 🙃 I have some thoughts. Why is Kawai trying to insert herself into Komi and Tadano's relationship. Why is Kawai's family weird. Why...is Kawai even here lmao. Komi and Tadano are adorable, though <3

My final thoughts are that it very much is a slice-of-life manga. Nothing revolutionary, I think, but that's fine! Watching the relationship grow between Tadano and Komi was the main thing for me and now that they're officially together, I'll admit, I'm not all that interested in the story anymore ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I know the main goal of the story is for Komi to overcome her social anxiety and make 100 friends and I do like the development of that goal, but...eh... I remember seeing a comment in the subreddit mention that they wish the goal was changed so that the quality of friendships mattered over quantity and I agree. The manga does emphasize that Komi has made meaningful connections with some of the friends she made (Tadano, Manbagi, Kawai...I assume? Didn't read LMAO) but that's the thing: it's only some friends. Her other friends are side characters that have their own side stories which may or may not be boring. They're not as fleshed out as Tadano or Manbagi nor do they share the same impact. Sure, a mean character may push Komi to stand up for herself once or twice but there's no revolutionary moment within Komi compared to her moments with Tadano or Manbagi. To be fair, those small moments with side characters do build up for Komi but my point still stands that Komi has friends that are much closer than the rest. Because of that, I just feel like Komi already reached her goal 🤷‍♀️ She has Tadano, her #1 support system and friend, along with other friends that played a role in her development. She doesn't really need more friends, since the friends she has now are already caring and considerate. She was able to form deep relationships despite her communication disorder; I feel like that's a great ending. And I know, ending a story when the main couple gets together is cliche and there'd be no kiss scene if that did happen but I'm just saying!!

oh and komi's parents' lil side story was adorable

#littleturtle? more like littlethoughts #komi can't communicate #I typed this instead of doing school work oops #I really did want to get my thoughts out though #watching a relationship develop between characters is my favorite past time and is why i read fanfic so much #ao3 my beloved #i may or may not do this again but with cheese in the trap (webcomic)#seol and jung's relationship is very interesting but ALL of the characters in the manwha are interesting tbh. for better or for worse.#its 3 am so im sorry if my thoughts are sloppy i will try my best to clear up anything when im not sleep deprived #god i love typing/talking about my thoughts on stuff i like #no more art. just thoughts.#thirty-fourth post

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akacatkat · 9 months

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Finally getting around to post the look back summary on the Nijisanji EN Chocolate Collection!

Completing the collection in 2022 was very challenging. I had a method to creating these and at first it was really fun! But doing it over and over in such a short amount of time wasn't very fun! It was very taxing and at some point it became really difficult to focus. I tried to keep to a strict deadline for each and I worked on multiple at a time, but due to that I couldn't finish each liver on the days I was hoping to complete them. Working on them all at once in order of interest seemed like a really good method. I wished I just had the time and the planning to allow myself to work in that way for the whole project.

For the additions of 2023, I was more lax on creating and posting following a rough deadline, but I was still working/posting in debut order. It helped a little to not take a toll on my physical wellbeing, but with no set deadline I didn't really space things out well, nor did I plan ahead of time like I initially wanted. I guess I wasn't quite looking forward to continue to work on the series because even if it was so cute it was repetitive, and not going to lie, a bit boring to do something so restrictive in style and workflow.

Consistency is difficult for me, not necessarily in the ways of actually drawing consistently but the act of doing something that's so restrictive. Normally when I draw illustrations, there is some aspect to it that is new, but with these chibis, to keep them looking cohesive/similar I needed to stick with the same, textures, brushes, forms, treatments etc. Maybe in the beginning if it was one single large piece it wouldn't have been so tiresome? Having a bunch of individual pieces and files felt endless and disconnected. It was difficult to see progress as a whole and the end goal.

After everything, I'm glad I could complete them! For some, I wished I could have executed better, some I wished I had better ideas for outfits and chocolates. I especially think I could have been more creative with poses. I think another thing that felt limiting was just my lack of skill when it comes to drawing chibis. Chibi poses? Those are really difficult. I also just have a very limited pose

I'm happy I could finish them in a satisfying enough way for myself! It was a fun challenge. I hope there wasn't anyone who was disappointed in my execution of any of the livers, but I did my best to give everyone thought and care even if I didn't know the liver all too well. Would I do something similar in the future? Probably not. I don't exactly have the mental bandwidth for it. If I were to do something like this again I would really need to attack it with a clear yet flexible plan that allowed me to work in a way that kept my interests.

I know I've said that this was the last round of Niji EN Chocolate series, but if no new wave debuts after Krisis by Valentines or White day I'll add Krisis to the collection! But that's also only if I feel up to it. Considering how difficult it is for me to do something repetitive and strict on style, the chances are relatively low. So I'm sorry if anyone was looking forward to it. Consider it a pleasant surprise if I do manage to add on to it!

#Niji EN Choco Project #acat chats

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emeritiii · 1 year

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Heck do all the asks

I had two more cups of coffee while working on these and my nervous system is undergoing a transformation

1. Art programs you have but don't use

I bought Clip Studio Paint on sale but still haven't dragged myself over the learning curve. I also have FireAlpaca downloaded and only use that for cropping images.

2. Is it easier to draw someone facing left or right (or forward even)

I find forward the easiest! Left and right are about the same for me, but I also do a lot of canvas-flipping, and about half the time the angle I start drawing is not the angle I end up with.

3. What ideas come from when you were little

Project-wise? I still kick around character designs from when I was a kid. In general, I think the brightest constant is that I do pretty much exclusively character art and not scenery, still life, or real-world living subjects because all my ideas are related to fiction.

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

I love monsters and extremely complex character designs, but they're hell on my stamina.

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

Right now, I post maybe ten percent of my art? Most of it is just for me or for one other person.

6. Anything that might inspire you subconsciously (i.e. this horse wasn't supposed to look like the Last Unicorn but I see it)

I guarantee there are still remnants of anime influence in my art, since anime and manga were what really cemented my identity as an "artist" (insofar as I can cal myself one, which is probably up for debate). One bit of evidence that comes to mind is my love of like... knockoff chibis? I don't think I can call them chibis, but funky lil guys.

7. A medium of art you don't work in but appreciate

*Watercolor.* My sister works mainly with watercolor and it's something I have never been able to grasp.

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

At some point I wanted to make a collection of group pictures with the main characters from all of my comfort stories.

9. What are your file name conventions

You need to see the thumbnail if you're going to have any idea what the file contains. I drew a three-part series of doodles and the filenames are "BEE," "too," and "tree." I'm also fond of variations on "HELP" and "ohno."

10. Favorite piece of clothing to draw

Tailcoats or long, flowy dresses

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

Whatever I'm feeling! Music, a podcast, an audiobook, a YouTube video that doesn't require me to look at it, a stream if I'm on a call with ~Geoffrey~ while she's playing a game. I'm not picky but my autistic ass (affectionate) needs the sensory input to focus

12. Easiest part of body to draw

Lukewarm take, I know, but eyes. Or eyebrows if I'm allowed to be a smartass

13. A creator who you admire but whose work isn't your thing

I don't know anything about this person so it's purely from an artistic standpoint, but I respect how wildly recognizable the JJBA art style is (the actual art, the expressions and poses, the character designs, all the things)

14. Any favorite motifs

e y e s and also bones and time-related symbols

15. *Where* do you draw (don't drop your ip address this just means do you doodle at a park or smth)

Almost entirely at home at my desk, but sometimes I doodle during downtime at work

16. Something you are good at but don't really have fun doing

*U h* I don't think I'm good at a wide enough variety of things to have an answer to this

17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what

I need to have a drink nearby at all times or I will Die. Flavored water, soda, and coffee are the big three, but I also like sweet tea and assorted fruit juices. I don't love eating while drawing for sensory/cleanliness reasons, but sometimes I'll have something crunchy

18. An estimate of how much art supplies you've broken

Not too many! I do tend to mangle colored pencils because I'm too rough when sharpening them, but I don't use a lot of materials that are easy to break and I'm neurotically careful with my tablet because I can't replace it. The closest I've come to breaking that was keeping the cord in a drawer my kitten learned how to open

19. Favorite inanimate objects to draw (food, nature, etc.)

Anything That Glows

20. Something everyone else finds hard to draw but you enjoy

Armor, mechanical parts, and bones. I'm not saying I don't find them difficult, mind you, but I love it

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

Slowly grasps Cinder's sleeve. Also Fern's. Also ~Geoffrey's~. If I have to choose someone I don't know personally, crow-caller

22. What physical exercises do you do before drawing, if any

This is a thing I definitely *should* do :)

23. Do you use different layer modes

YEAH I abuse Multiply and Screen

24. Do your references include stock images

Oh naturally. AdorkaStock is my go-to

25. Something your art has been compared to that you were NOT inspired by

Nothing that I can think of? I think that's mostly because the art communities I used to participate in heavily discouraged comparison, so I haven't heard any variant of "Your art reminds me of ____" in at least five years.

26. What's a piece that got a wildly different interpretation from what you intended

I don't have anything specific on hand, but I had a friend in middle school who jumped to sexualizing everything I drew, if that counts. There's not a lot to interpret in my art, though. It's. How do I put "shallow" nicely?

27. Do you warm up before getting to the good stuff? If so, what is it you draw to warm up with

This is another thing I should really do!

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)

I used to do Art Fight.

29. Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically

Most live-action media! I also don't generally feel artistic inspiration from podcasts—the exception would be TTRPG podcasts, but even those don't tend to do it for me unless the characters have canon designs.

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated

I don't have it anymore, but there was a drawing I did a few months ago of two characters of mine. It came out to about twenty hours of work (which is a lot for me) and no one really seemed to like it, but I attribute that in part to the fact that I drew a lot of it in a stream, which kind of desensitizes people.

#thank you!!#does an evil little kickflip #long post

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crocus-cryptid · 29 days

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We're on to V1:E2, as listed on roosterteeth's website. I know what the E stands for, but it took me a second to realize it's V for Volume. I watched V1:E1 immediately before this, so it's two plays of the theme song back to back. The theme fucks severely so I'm not complaining.

I realized the airships have fins and it looks a bit like they're swimming in the sky. That's really cool. Holy shit they switch to standing on all fours to land, I love that. A lot of RWBY's design elements function on the rule of cool, I think. Is it practical to have a gun scythe? Do physics really work that way in combat? Probably not, but it kicks major ass so it's fine.

I feel bad for Jaune, that's one hell of a case of motion sickness. Poor dude's vomited at least twice.

I noticed one of the shadow people doing a jaunty little walk on the way into beacon, that made me smile. Oh damn this episode is only six minutes. In later seasons I remember everything being a more consistent length, but I guess the series was still finding its footing here.

It's funny how Ruby animorphs into 2d chibi art. The flat colors and style of it harken back to the sort of thing I used to see being posted on deviantart by younger artists, which gives me a nice warm sense of nostalgia. I remember posting my wonky anime art online once upon a time.

I think it's cute that Ruby's a weapon nerd. That could be a great vehicle to explain more about how weapons work in Remnant. How a character explains world details can tell you just as much about that character as it does about the world.

I kind of love the poorly recorded stock sound effects. It's something that really roots this in that era of youtube animation.

Weiss assuming that Ruby doesn't know what dust is is likely to explain what it is to the audience, but she's also a brat who would figure that most people are beneath her based on this scene alone. Blake just standing there reading a book is interesting- was she reading and walking at the same time? I forgot that she was a bookworm.

You can really see the anime influence in how they animate the characters. Also in how they're designed, but how they move and emote feels very anime.

I wonder about that wiggly clothing effect. Is it supposed to be wind? I've seen it happening indoors. I'm guessing it's not an error since they've consistently kept it in. Is it for emphasis? It's probably wind.

Blake bringing up the unfair labor practices Weiss' family corporation employs comes back later, I know.

I like Jaune's shield, and I thought it was funny that Ruby pointed out how it weighs the same. Even the "uncool" weapons are neat. It's cool that Ruby forged her own weapon, too!

The outro fucks severely too! The chorus reminds me of music from the 70s in some ways, with the strings and the bells. I clicked off to look up the full song. The guitar solo is pretty good, feels kind of Steve Vai to me.

Oh huh, V1:E3 is another six minute chunk titled pt 2 to the last one. I'll just keep going in this post since it's basically one episode. This was uploaded after the ten minute limit on youtube videos based on how V1:E1 was one ~12 minute chunk, so I'm not sure what's up with that.

Jaune going "Where am I supposed to find another nice, quirky girl to talk to?" And there immediately being another character with real details behind him is honestly pretty funny foreshadowing. If they were animating this one piece at a time before uploading, it'd make a lot of sense if they read the comments about Jaune clearly being an actual character and decided to make a gag from it.

The dialogue can be pretty rough. It reminds me of like. What people think Marvel movies sound like. And I don't like marvel movies.

Ruby reads as autistic to me, maybe some other flavor of neurodivergent as well.

Ozpin's glasses remind me of Vash from Trigun's glasses. I wonder if that was intentional or not.

I love Jaune's footy pajamas. The background boys having real detail was probably just to sell the gag but it might be fun to see them again.

Ruby's pajamas remind me of the Dead Tired line of g1 monster high dolls, with the graphic tank top, patterned pajama pants and sleep mask. I doubt she has high heeled slippers, though. She and Frankie Stein would probably get along pretty well.

Ooh it's a different song this outro! My guess is it's to show off the totally awesome soundtrack. If I had music that awesome linked to my project I'd want to show it off too. I should listen to Jeff and Casey Lee William's discography after this.

#rwby #croxs rwby liveblog

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multi-facets · 3 months

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Anime Rambling.

[Warning: There's a lot of improper language, upsetting statements, misogyny, and references to violent acts in this post.]

I recently had a short chat with @und8e2ff (hi there [waves]) about misogyny in anime and anime fandoms, and they encouraged me to say more from my point of view. So since it's a Sunday and there's not much else to do now that most of my chores are completed (aside from working on my novel), I figured "eh, why not."

Fair warning: I'm coming to this subject with my own experiences and biases. If you want a truly smart commentary on this, I'm not the right person to ask.

I was a younger teen when the North American Anime Boom of the '90s hit. I'd seen anime before and simply never known it ("Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid" on VHS, "Grimm's Fairy Tales" on Nick Jr, and "Warriors of the Wind" on VHS at five or six, for instance), but now shows like "Sailor Moon," "Ronin Warriors," "Dragonball Z," and "Mobile Suit Gundam Wing" (to name a few) were taking over the airwaves, and audiences hadn't seen plots or animation like theirs before.

Magical girls. Giant mecha. Transforming boys. Screaming warriors. It was all a massive hit, transforming American entertainment and art in ways that could never have been predicted in the '90s. Several webcomics kicked off by imitating their style. Conventions started become more varied in what they could offer. Dubbing looked like a viable career. Fansites sprang up, the fanfiction scene that had been around for ages suddenly exploded thanks to newbies, and fan reactions ranged from "That scene was so moving!" to "I did some research, and that symbolism is compelling," to "I love everything about the art and the style," to "The politics are hard to follow, can anyone explain?" to "How was this phrased in Japanese, does anyone know?" to "Holy crap this is a lot more censored than I realized," to "OMFG I FUCKING HATE MIAKA/RELENA/CHIBI-USA/MIA THEY'RE SUCH BITCHES WHORE SLUTS CUNTS I'M GONNA KILL THEM ALL THEY'RE ALL SO USELESS THEY DESERVE TO BURN IN HELL HEERO/RYO/PICCOLO/TAMAHOME/DARIEN/KURAMA IS MINE ALL MINE DO YOU HEAR ME MINE!"

.... wait, what?

Yeah. That- That was a thing. It was disturbing to see the sheer vehemence, vitriol, and sheer HATRED female characters in anime were getting. There were sites slamming them at every turn for their behavior, their clothing, their skill sets, their roles, and personalities. No female character could do anything right. If they were modest homemakers who were genuinely happy to be married with kids, they were reeling feminism back a hundred years. If they were action girls, they were stealing the show from the men. If they were outclassed in any way, they were useless crybabies. If they were aloof political figures trying to survive a rocky political climate, they were frigid bitches.

And most of this was coming from girls and women.

Now, folks more articulate than me have pointed out why these reactions happened, and the essays are varied and well thought out. But back then, in the thick of it, I only saw an insane amount of immaturity, insecurity, low self-esteem, jealousy, envy, rage and hatred against fictional female characters for the "crime" of being cute girls or attractive women around adorable boys and hot men.

I could be wrong, of course: Like I said, I'm talking about this now through several years and my own experiences and biases. But when you find posts saying (for instance) characters like "Fushigi Yuugi's" Miaka deserved to be raped because she's such a stupid bitch and doesn't deserve Tamahome.... yeah, that sticks with you. Back then, I don't think any of these people had much perspective or understanding, or even empathy. I didn't even fully understand just how fucked some of these characters' lives were until much later, but I still wasn't advocating for their deaths.

Like- okay, I'm sorry, but there's still lots of sexism in anime. Female characters always had to be less powerful than men in combat, or they were non-combatants. Setsuna Mudo of "Angel Sanctuary" flat-out tells the demon princess Kurai, an impressive dragon-summoning sorceress despite her relatively young age, that women are supposed to be beautiful so men will want to protect them. Some female characters don't get a chance to shine unless there's a minimal male presence. Go Nagai's first run of the "Devilman" manga was cut short, so he took it out on Miki Makimura by having her killed in the story, and ever since then, there is barely any incarnation of her that doesn't get murdered or just have lousy luck, and she almost never truly has a chance with Akira Fudo, the boy she loves. Admittedly, I don't know if Nagai-sensei wrote it all like that because he thought it was the only way the story could go, or if he really did make Miki the target of his disappointment, but he has hardly ever thrown her a bone, either.

As for what the characters were going through, Chibi-Usa was over nine hundred years old, but she'd been stuck as a child for that long and was clearly suffering from survivor's guilt and PTSD. Usagi herself was FOURTEEN when she saw the scope of evil she was up against, and heard she was caught in a tragedy in her last life. Saori Kido of "Saint Seiya" was admittedly a spoiled brat, but got a severe reality check when her grandfather died and she learned she's the incarnation of a GODDESS with all the attached responsibilities that go with it at what was originally thirteen years old! But guess what, that lead to character development!

Relena Darlian saw her father get caught in an explosion, and before he died of his injuries, he told her she was adopted, which is a hell of a thing to tell your shell-shocked kid before you croak. And Relena would later be yanked into politics as a puppet while struggling with her lost innocence and attempting to uphold ideals too big for her to handle alone. Hell, how do we know she wasn't suicidal when she yelled for Heero to come kill her? I'm not saying she didn't make some foolish choices, but hell, she was what, fifteen when her life went tits-up? It's not often we make good decisions at that age!

Nasute Yagyu/Mia Koji of "Yoroiden Samurai Troopers/Ronin Warriors" was seventeen when Japan went to Hell, and instead of freaking out, she stole a policeman's bike, pedaled to the epicenter of the crisis, protected a lost child, and demanded that the heroes stop competing against each other and work together. And it worked! And when her poor grandfather died as a result of the Youjakai's/Netherworld's forces targeting him, Mia got to work through her tears to become the expert the Troopers/Warriors needed. Ryo even tried to tell her that she really should take a moment because of her loss, but she kept going because she was still badly needed and her grandpa entrusted all his work to her.

These are just a few examples, but I kept seeing fans, especially girls, who had absolutely no empathy about any of it, insisting they could be stronger, better, smarter, more helpful, more powerful. (That's called hubris, y'all.) The fanfiction scene reflected this, in which female characters were treated like shit, tortured, raped, murdered horribly, drastically misrepresented to make the self-inserts look better, or just written out entirely so the fans could write themselves in and.... usually do exactly what the female characters did. Or they would die heroically cradled by the hero they coveted. Or they would write reams of yaoi that still forced the male characters into heteronormative roles. (Again, just a few samples.)

I'll pause here to say there's nothing wrong with wanting to be part of a story that means a lot to you. I just rarely saw any well-done, non-hateful examples of it in those days.

And y'know what? These fans wouldn't even HAVE their pretty boys in giant mechs if female fans in Japan hadn't set a precedent! When "Mobile Suit Gundam" was CANCELED during production (we nearly had a world without Haro!), a letter-writing campaign saved it, and who wrote the majority of those letters? Girls and women from fifteen to twenty-five! They saved "Mobile Suit Gundam," and it became a franchise that is still a worldwide hit!

I was very, very confused about all this as a teenage girl, and now that I'm forty-one, I still don't really get it, especially since sexism is still a problem in media and reality. (This was all happening during the "Girl Power!" trend, too. It was so counter-intuitive. Why weren't we banding together to support the female characters and try to get more women in media? Why weren't the fans inspired to try writing their own things if they were so disappointed with female characters instead of lashing out?) There are even male content creators who get upset when their work is aimed at men, but also draws a large female audience that gets them paid.

But it does make me wonder what those hateful fans would think if I was able to go back in time and tell them "Hey, there's a series called 'Gundam: The Witch From Mercury' and it has a lesbian couple as pilots. Yeah, no pretty boys front and center this time, we got some awesome young ladies showing their stuff instead."

And I also wonder if, now that we're all older, they'd have the experience, perspective, knowledge, and empathy to look back at their behavior and say "How embarrassing. I wasn't being kind at all."

Because hell. Like I said: It's not always easy to make good choices as a teenager.

#old auntie multi #old school anime #holy crap did I have a lot to say

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randomositycat · 4 months

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Artist/animator brain telling me to pick apart each episode for subtle differences in comparison to the show as a whole

What seems like it could be on model and what feels like it was pushing boundaries to developing a semi-new style for the anime

Rant under cut bc hi I do this a lot in my head,, and I could go through each episode and pick them apart but I've got e 17 on the brain so we'll stick with that for now and maybe I'll check out the older ones later

I only bring it up now bc,, well I didn't want to before

In e 17 (since it's the one freshest in my brain) the art differences I notice are purely in the chibi style, and minorly in the closer shots of characters

This shot specifically feels like it belongs to a different show! But still suuper super cute all the same!

And we go back to something more fitting with the other similar style shots from previous episodes! Not to say that it's all and all the same style every time, but again the differences are subtle and you have to look very closely to even say "huh, that's a bit different!"

I also noticed that usually they don't skip out of drawing fingernails? which sure most animes dont but it feels different here? If that makes sense,,

They really upped their detail game compared to other episodes! all the little things that pain me to even think about doing as an animator! The work put into some of these shots is super impressive! They even shaded the fake mole?? Come on!! The idea of doing what they've down with these shots makes me tired,, kudos to the artists for having the nerve

The fingernails stand out the most to me bc there is so much detail in them!

From the cuticle to the beautiful lighting and shading when she was applying make up to his face (I don't have a gift sorryyy 😣)

And we already know the eyes are beautiful, but my favorite attention to detail is Jinshi's eyes. Maomao never fails to comment on his beauty, and artistically it shows as much, emphasizing it to no end really, but he's so subtly feminine that I find myself studying his eyes quite a bit! His long eyelashes really draw you in...

You can see they dulled it down a little, for his Jinka disguise, but even then he's got such gentle eyes that could easily be mistaken for a woman's if he were to hide his face :) (looking at you Hunting arc, missed a chance! I'll tell you!)

Maomao's expressions in this episode really take the cake too LOL

There's no shortage of good maomao faces, especially not here >:)

As each new episode releases I'm just soooo enamored with how steady the improvement is! Artists finding their rhythm with the characters and sprinkling little things here and there that can go unnoticed but definitely enhance a shot! It's amazing!

And it brings me to talk about e4 which yes I agree is gorgeous animated, but im someone who prefers consistency rather than quality in my animated shows

(quality is good yes but to go from very fluid to standard fluid is jarring to say in the least)

I adore the fluidity in e4, obsessed with it. I was under the impression that an entirely different director + team was in charge (I wasn't wrong abt the director)

My favorite bits have to be the expressions,

And how each movement feels less like a show and more like a movie, like we got a spontaneous budget increase for this episode alone!

Lip syncing too, REALLY on point! I love angry Maomao and I'm a sucker for lip syncing any time!! When she was scolding Lihua's lady in waiting, the animators really hit every keyframe on the nose! (generally makes e4 dub a bit of a hassle for me to watch) I rewatch the sequence again and again because of how well done it is :) a spectacular moment indeed

Another episode with really fluid moments is episode 10, I think 🤔 when she confronts Lady Lishu about Fengming. The entire scene is wonderfully done, with Lishu's expressions and her ladies-in-waiting being excited to talk to Jinshi :) all things I gladly pay attention to

All in all the show has a gorgeous art direction 😊 I hope they continue to enhance it little by little with subtle things like everything i mentioned above

Makes an artist's heart flutter thinking about the dedication and care put into its production

#im just talking about art styles #and the visuals in knh #cant help myself #animation makes neuron activate #its a ramble really #coherency is not my specialty!!

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