“To know you is to love you.”

My experience with Lumii/HoneyStarlightz/Lumiidere/Lumii after dark/KiramekiCookie

I have to get this out of my system because I'm deadass tired of watching this person wander around as if they're innocent when they aren't, and I'm also annoyed because of people not noticing what this person does behind the scenes because it now takes one quick Google Search using the prompt "Luca Wii Sports" to go down the rabbit hole. This is about HoneyStarlightz/Lumii.

Lemme begin with the minor stuff. So you know how Lumii has a massive grudge against me because of most of, if not all the stuff I drew in my DeviantArt account? Almost everything there was drawn when I was a FUCKING MINOR. I am 20 years old as we speak, and most of the drawings Lumii mentions happened BEFORE MY 18TH BIRTHDAY on the 1st of December, 2021, and I'll admit, during most of that time, I was a dumbass, immature, and an edgelord. I then stopped posting anything bloody and/or revealing but continued to post harmless drawings before my 18th birthday happened. October 11th of last year was when I stopped posting on that account all together because I found out that DeviantArt was blaming Hamas and Hamas only for the Palestinian deaths and making it as if the Israel military didn't do a thing to innocent lives in Palestine after Hamas attacked.

Next, we have them making me look like an asshole for shipping Luca with Abby (The one shipart I made of the two apparently traumatized them). Back when I was 17, I decided to draw Abby and Luca, two Miis I'm not a fan of, nor close to, as a couple because I thought shipping the two was a good idea. I then posted the finished product on the 23rd of January, 2021. The drawing was not meant to traumatize anyone. It was JUST. SHIP. ART. OF. ABBY. &. LUCA. The only bad thing about that drawing was that I shoved my opinion of the two Miis down people's throats in the description by asking how the hell do people like them because to me, they're just not fun to play against at all, and even then, it was drawn three to four years ago, and I don't even ship the two anymore. I ship Abby with Wii U Barbara now. Mate, I didn't even know Lumii EXISTED back then, let alone know they had a massive love for Luca.

Next, there's the clear as day hipocrisy that people have yet to notice somehow. So you know how Lumii has "Opinion Bashers" on their DNI list, right? On that same list, they also have people that hate, despise, even dislike Luca, instantly making them a hypocrite because they said they don't want to interact with people who just cannot tolerate others having a different opinion while also saying that if you think Luca is not a good Mii, you're instantly on their shit list. Also, they said no exceptions, meaning you can be the nicest person in the world, but if you dislike Luca, go fuck yourself.

I have several friends that like Luca a lot, some of which are here on Tumblr. I do not like Luca. We get along perfectly fine. I don't understand why they feel like Luca haters and Luca lovers can't co-exist when they clearly can. Just don't be an ass to others when it comes to what you think of the character, mate.

Lastly, we have the fact that they cannot take criticism. They said criticism is prohibited on their DeviantArt profile, which means that you can say anything positive about their art, but if you say anything negative, then nope. Get out. Oh, I'm so sorry I gave you a harmless critique that was just saying what I didn't like and how you can improve. I apologize.

Seriously tho, how sensitive can you be to the point where you prohibit people from critiquing your work? Or is it that they can't criticize you? Or is it both?

Now we go to the bigger stuff, starting with the TRANSPHOBIA ACCUSATIONS and obvious delusion. They said, and I quote "please shut the fuck up for calling him "Lucapoopa", "Boring", "Annoying", "Scum" and "Tedious" for the love of fucking god, he's fucking overhated and y'all are too harsh and transphobic at him, fucking hell".

Luca is not canonically trans. Don't even say he is because of unused data because I did my research, and the only unused data he has is facial hair related. Don't get me wrong, Luca being trans is a HC that I'm completely fine with. If you want to headcanon him as trans, fine by me. Trans rights all the way, mate. Don't fucking call people transphobic just for disliking Luca tho! Luca is not canonically trans, and even if he was, bold of Lumii to assume that someone that hates Luca hates him because he's trans. He appears as an opponent in three games and there's a chance that he might piss you off in all three.

How delusional do you have to be to see someone hate a character that isn't trans outside of your HC and go "Oh, they're transphobic"?

Next, there's fullblown insensitivity. I decided to check on DeviantArt for something, and I get a DM from someone. We had a chat about Lumii, and in that chat, they showed this...

Can you spot the insensitive part? Here, I'll make it easier for ya.

I'm completely fine with people giving dark backstories to Miis in their HC, but there's a line, and you crossed it. Can we not do rape related headcanons, please? I feel like that should go without saying because, oh, I dunno, that shit is OBVIOUSLY IN BAD TASTE!

Lastly, there's something I cannot show here because if I do, I'm going to get in trouble... It has to do with porn...

Lumii has a total of three accounts that I bumped into while looking at Luca images on Google that have porn of Miis on them. They have a Newgrounds account (KiramekiCookie), which has two drawings of Luca porn, a Bluesky account (Lumii after dark), which has twelve, and a Twitter/X account with the same name, which not only has porn of Luca, but of other Miis too... AND THERE'S AN UNGODLY AMOUNT OF IT, MOST OF IT BEING LUCA PORN! TELL ME YOU'RE OBSSESSED WITH OUT TELLING ME YOU'RE OBSSESSED!

I make YOU uncomfortable, Lumii? I make YOU uncomfortable?! You drew Luca laying eggs, you drew a worrying amount of Luca porn, and yet you have the AUDACITY to say I make YOU uncomfortable when you're obviously worse, you fucking hypocrite?! You drew art that is bound to make several people uncomfortable the moment they see it on the THREE ACCOUNTS you have, you falsely accuse people of transphobia, you obssess over Luca an unhealthy and uncomfortable amount, and yet I'M the one in the wrong because I drew ship art of Luca and Abby and art that has blood on it years ago?! I don't get your logic!

BTW, for those who say that this could've been resolved privately, it couldn't because Lumii has blocked me on DeviantArt, and they also blocked me on an old Tumblr account of theirs too, meaning that talking to them was out of the fucking question. They CLEARLY did not want to talk it out. They just wanted to avoid me entirely while also antagonize me for shit I did years ago that wasn't even that bad compared to the crap they did.

Lumii, if you manage to see this, which I know you will because I know you have a Discord and I know someone's gonna send a screenshot to you on there... All of this could've been avoided had you just been a better person.

In ACOWAR and at the start of ACOMAF, there were many hints that Feyre was always destined for the Night Court, regardless of her simultaneously falling for and nearly marrying someone in Spring.

I’d painted around the knobs of Elain’s drawer, the crackling flames I’d painted around Nesta’s, and the night sky—whorls of yellow stars standing in for white—around mine

And above that, perched in a frozen mountainous spread of darkness and stars, the sprawling, massive territory of the Night Court. There were things in the shadows between those mountains—little eyes, gleaming teeth. A land of lethal beauty. The hair on my arms rose.

Behind me, a shadow lurked—no, watched. I didn’t dare turn to look at it, to see who might be within that shadow, observing, not as the wolf stared at me across the clearing.

I looked at the pool of glittering starlight and let out a heavy breath. I needed to change the subject. “What would happen if I were to drink the water?” Tamlin straightened a bit—then relaxed, as if glad to release that old sadness. “Legend claims you’d be happy until your last breath.”

Up and up, building to a palace in the sky, a hall of alabaster and moonstone, where all that was lovely and kind and fantastic dwelled in peace. I wept—wept to be so close to that palace, wept from the need to be there. Everything I wanted was there—the one I loved was there—

Celebrating a winter holiday in a place that was permanently entrenched in spring hadn’t done much to improve my general lack of festive cheer.

A night breeze floated through the open windows, ruffling my hair, drying the cold sweat on me. The dark sky beckoned, the stars so dim and small, like speckles of frost.

“Welcome to the Night Court,” was all Rhys said. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen.

So why is that same setup, only in reverse starting in Night Court yet hinting at Spring, being ignored for Elain?

“I painted flowers for Elain on her drawer,” I said, sawing and sawing. “Little roses and begonias and irises.

Nesta hid the devastation well. The frustration. “What can I get you, Elain?” Only with Elain did she use that voice. But Elain shook her head once more. “Sunshine.”

She was a rose bloom in a mud field. Filled with galloping horses. “Don’t be afraid of them,” Nesta said beneath lowered brows. If Elain was a blooming flower in this army camp, then Nesta … she was a freshly forged sword, waiting to draw blood.

I saw the painting in my mind: the lovely fawn, blooming spring vibrant behind her. Standing before Death, shadows and terrors lurking over his shoulder. Light and dark, the space between their bodies a blend of the two. THE ONLY bridge of connection … that knife.

Elain would love this place. So many flowers, all in bloom, so much green—the light, vibrant green of new grass—so many birds singing and such warm, buttery sunshine

But Elain … The Spring Court had been made for someone like her. Too bad her sister refused to see her. Nesta would have told Elain to visit this place.

Her sister’s delicate scent of jasmine and honey lingered in the red-stoned hall like a promise of spring, a sparkling river that she followed to the open doors of the chamber.

In ACOTAR, once Tamlin allows her to see, hear and smell what he does, the first scent of Springs magic that Feyre notes is jasmine.

Elain in black was ridiculous

the cruelty of the Hewn City troubled her.

but wearing black, no matter how much she claimed to be part of this court … It sucked the life from her.

Gone was the ill-suited black dress from the ball,

Thanks to @acourtdelaluna for inspiring this post ❤️

george russell is interviewed at the launch of the w15 - february 14, 2024 (transcript under the cut)

Interviewer: "George, Lewis and Toto have touched on this: In terms of the journey of the last, say, for example, twelve months, how important has that been for the team?" George: "It's been massively important. As we've touched on, we hit the ground in 2022 and the car wasn't performing as we expected, but we've learned so much as a team, and we've got such an amazing team, so many people, 2,000 strong people across Brackley and Brixworth. So many people there are winners and champions, but there's also so many new people there who are so motivated to get Mercedes back to the very top, and I think that combination brings this fire within. And everybody's just so excited, motivated, working so, so hard. And, as we said, we've seen all of the drawings, we've been in the wind tunnel, we've been driving it in the simulator, we've been seeing the design on the computers and with the Petronas green down the side, and bringing the silver back to the racecar, but seeing it here as one is really an exciting moment. But none of that matters until it hits the track and we see what the laptimes produce." Interviewer: "And talking about that, you can hear it in your voice. How excited are you to get behind the wheel?" George: "To be honest I couldn't sleep last night because it's this element of anticipation, I think. When you arrive to round three, four, or five, you've got an idea or an expectation of your performance. When you arrive to the first test and you arrive to the first race, you have no idea how this car's gonna perform. You have an indication of the improvements /you've/ made, but you don't know what your rivals have achieved. Have they made a step forwards? Have they made any mistakes? Are we gonna leap forward? Are there gonna be cars from behind who are gonna make an unexpected jump? So this is the time of the year where everybody's sat in anticipation, but all you can do is look at yourself in the mirror, maximize everything you can do, keep on working, don't worry about the rest, and I've got faith it'll come."

TMNT Art Diary 2: The Importance of Art Goals and Focusing Your Attention

Happy March, everyone! How are we doing? It's been almost a month and a half since my last turtle art diary, so I figured it was about time to type up yet another set of ramblings talking about my experiences learning how to draw the 2003 TMNT.

Before we get started, I feel it's worth mentioning that the future of this blog is kinda up in the air at this point? From the beginning, I've been against AI generated images because of the ethics involved and like many in the Tumblr art community, recent going-ons with the site have me concerned for where things might be headed. I'm not planning to jump ship just yet, but there is a pretty good chance that I'll be posting less and less original drawings here and start utilizing my newly created Pillowfort instead, as the staff has taken a very firm anti-AI stance to the point of completely banning both AI generated images and writing on the site (the official Tumblr post regarding their decision). If you're a fellow artist, TMNT or otherwise, they might be worth checking out as a potential alternative to Tumblr.

With that out of the way, let's begin!

Okay, so let's talk about something that applies to most anything when you're learning how to do art; the importance of art goals and taking things one step at a time. Whether you're a beginner artist or someone who already has years of experience under your belt, it's important to not only have goals in mind of what you want to learn, but also to try and not do everything all at once. There is a lot that goes into successfully drawing the turtles; their anatomy, applying their less human features like their shells and three-fingered hands, their expressions, their colors, etc. HOWEVER, if you're trying to learn to draw too many aspects of their designs all at once, you are going to become overwhelmed very fast and you will not see improvement as quickly, which inevitably results in frustration and loss of motivation. Ergo, you need to take things bit by bit, breaking down the turtles designs into bite-sized pieces and focusing on specific areas that you are having trouble on.

For instance, early on, I realized pretty quickly that one of the areas I was struggling in was the turtles heads; I love their shape, but damn are they hard to draw. Subsequently, there was a point where I was largely drawing turtle heads and ONLY turtle heads so I could learn what shapes went into them, what they looked like from different angles, etc. Within even a few days, I already saw massive improvements just because I wasn't trying to draw EVERYTHING all at once; just one very specific aspect of their designs. Compare the very first Donny I drew on the 5th of January to a quick doodle of Mikey I did a couple of weeks later on the 25th and you can see how much I learned in such a short timespan.

Speaking of shapes, you wanna know the biggest hack I've discovered for learning how to draw the 2003 turtles? Studying the Fast Forward art style. Yeah, you heard me.

At first glance, this seems kind of stupid. I'm pretty sure most people aiming to draw fanart of the 2003 turtles are planning to draw them in a similar style to the first five seasons, so it makes more sense to study screencaps and model sheets from those seasons rather than FF. However, the reason why Fast Forward is so useful for TMNT 2003 fanartists is because, at its core, Fast Forward is 2003's art style simplified. Anyone who has ever taken a professional art class or looked up tutorials online knows that basic shapes are incredibly important when drawing, as they are the building blocks of literally whatever illustration you're trying to make. Now, I absolutely love how detailed the designs from the first five seasons are, but because they are so detailed, a lot of the basic shapes do get lost under everything as a result, which can make it hard to figure out what actually goes into the turtles designs at a fundamental level.

Because the designs in Fast Forward are less detailed compared to what was seen in the first five seasons, many of the basic shapes that go into the turtles designs are much easier to spot. If you've been following me long enough, you know that I was absolutely LIVID to discover that one of the things I genuinely don't like about the Fast Forward style--the pentagon shaped heads--makes drawing the 03 turtle heads so much easier. To explain it in detail; a pentagon basically maps out the five "points" of a turtle's head. What these points represent can change depending on the angle from which you're drawing your chosen turtle, but if you're doing a turtle head from a front/three quarter view, the five points denotes the top of the head, the cheeks, and the chin. It requires some practice to get right, but by building off this initial pentagon shape, you can easily draw a turtle head in the style of the first five seasons. A hexagon works just as well and is especially useful if you're going for a rounder/softer head shape.

Beyond that, I think making to deliberate choice to draw in the Fast Forward style rather than the OG style is helpful for other reasons. When a turtle's head is only a pentagon, you don't have to worry as much about details and can focus on other areas you might be neglecting, such as figuring out the positioning of the eyes/mask, or developing the way you draw the turtles' expressions. (Seriously, the white pupil-less eyes are cool, but they do make conveying emotions a hassle, especially when the turtles are lacking for proper eyebrows.)

It's been about two months since I drew my very first 2003 turtle and while I'm still very far off from where I want to be, I've already made some leaps and bounds in terms of overall progress. I do sometimes feel annoying yelling about my turtle art learnings and struggles (especially when I know there is stuff that potentially comes off as Captain Obvious territory to others) but I personally find it helpful to write down everything I've learned and experienced in case I forget something and need to look back on it. And hey, maybe someone will see these disjointed ramblings as helpful. You never know.

Anyway, here's a lil Donny doodle from today to finish this entry off. See ya later!

ramble under the cut about souyo and art, the only two things i am capable of talking about at this point

do you ever get to the point where everything reminds you of your OTP like wow i just listened to like. clarity by zedd (throwback) and was like WOW so souyo but then it has nothing to DO with souyo, except someone totally made an amv of them to that song and just. so are we putting them into everything, is that allowed, can i do that, can i be cringe and make everything about my OTP, like i KNOW i can be cringe because i already am but wow when is souyo going to release my brain from its grip

like even when i'm reading fic or stuff of other couples i'm like hmm i should use that for something souyo related which is kind of funny, it's like i'm doing research on how to increase my production of souyo, i literally do take notes on ideas and save fics and manga for later, academic research brain but for souyo

and i was listening to music because i need something that's distracting enough to keep me entertained but not too distracting that i stop working on my art, but since i was like "wow this is cheesy" i turned it off and so i started thinking about my art instead...

and it's like, simultaneously i've been thinking that i've been getting a lot better and i've been stagnating, and i know the common advice is to be like "compare yourself to yourself only because everyone else is on a different journey" except you wouldn't hold a 7th grader to the standards of a 6th grader would you? maybe you would to see the improvement so this analogy makes no sense, but i feel like it's only because i compare myself to others that i've improved, because if i never looked at other artists' work i wouldn't know what i want to add to my own art

and if i do compare myself to myself from the beginning of when i was drawing souyo there's a massive difference for sure, and it's only been a little over a year and that really isn't that big of a time period for improving a skill that you've been working on your entire life but it feels like i haven't made it anywhere and it feels like i have so far left to go wow

and i feel like there's too many goals to pursue and not enough time. like i want to post a lot more than i do, and draw a lot faster than i do, and have it be better than it is, but that seems so unrealistic yet there are artists who are totally doing that right now

like what i'm drawing right now would totally be out of reach for ribbons of last year but it just feels so underwhelming for ribbons of this year yknow, crazy how life works like that

tl;dr this is your brain on yaoi cocainw

Happy 1 year anniversary to my ghost animation!

and massive thanks to everyone that's shared it!

More on the development and stuff under the cut. (it's long)

Character concepts!

I wanted to have some really simple and complimentary characters for this one, the ghost was pretty much set from day one. There were a lot of changes for the main character, they started as this hat wearing design, then moved to the hooded style (better and simpler for my rudimentary 3d skills at the time!) Everyone else was pretty much one drawing and done since they're so referential, we've got slimer, sadako and of course the interpid ghost hunter team.

Animatic!

You can see that the gensis of this was really 'One background, that never changes PLEASE' which I think is sucessful as it can be, it makes the ending more powerful. Absolutely one of those things that more confidence with the software would improve on a follow up anim.

Textures/Assets!

Originally this was all planned to be a kinda 2.5d animation, so here' a lot of the original textures and assets from Illustrator

Anim and Development!

So all of this was put together in Blender 2.79 as that was all my poor suffering laptop could take. First time using it, so absolute learning curve.

Any texture work was produced in Adobe Illustrator and any animated texture work was produced in After Effects, including all the facial animation (which was animated separately, then added to the face as a texture).

I wanted to animate it all in AFX, but oh my god that program, absolute love/hate relationship, so while it is the backbone, Blender is the real hero, everything originally made for AFX was remodelled in Blender.

I made this anim at a pretty low place and while it wasn't completely responsible for getting me outta my ditch, I absolutely wouldn't be where I am right now without it. Thanks so much for all the love and comments over the last year!

how would you have improved/changed the writing for hallibel and the other female arrancar? i feel like she is so cool but gets next to nothing in the anime and reduced to OMG BOOBS in fandom

A big problem I have with how female characters are handled in the series is that they fall into a handful of distinct types, and don't deviate much from that. These include "morally stable voice of reason among a bunch of shitty men", "aggressive tsundere whose violence is treated like a joke", and the more antagonist-specific one, "angry bitch with sex appeal".

Bleach's female characters, in general, tend to not get much depth, and the Arrancar REALLY have the short end of the stick in that department. Thus, the most significant thing I'd change (which I do in my own writing already) is giving their personalities more complexity— and for that matter, moral nuance. Characters like Halibel and Nelliel deserve to be more than the nice Hollows, and ones like Loly and Cirucci deserve to be more than "mean bitches".

On a similar note, taking them seriously. The fact that Starrk is the sole First Espada and somehow wound up with 95% of the power between him and Lilynette is a CRIME. The fact that the last we see of Halibel is with her chained up, half-naked, and in Quincy prison is just as bad. Bleach's female characters rarely get serious fights that are as intense, brutal, and high-stakes as the male characters' battles, and that's another major thing I'd change. Give them serious, significant, epic fights, and give them more victories. The whole Lilynette vs Ukitake battle is a clear example of a female character's fight being written off as a joke, and I would NOT keep that.

Then, of course, is the designs. When it comes to female characters, Kubo draws impossibly massive, gravity-defying tits on stick-thin bodies, women who look like preteens, and not a lot else. I despise Halibel's release form design, and everything about Lilynette's outfit feels made to infantilize and sexualize her. I don't mind female characters having sex appeal, but when EVERY woman is half-naked while the men stay fully clothed, there's a problem.

I'd like to see more muscular female designs— and I mean muscular the way Yammy is. More masculine designs too, and with outfits that do more than show off their bodies for the audience. Less unnaturally massive boobs, and more variety in heights, builds, and facial features. Just... I'd like to see the same diversity in the female characters' designs that the male characters have.

I'm stopping here for now because this has turned into enough of a rant. It would be easier for me to give more specific details character by character, so if you want my re-write opinions on anyone in particular, feel free to ask! o3o

General updates

So a lot happened since new year.

I got an apprenticeship at a hospital and getting used to getting up at 4:45 every day on weekdays and not getting home before 3-4pm is still draining me. Working at a hospitals cafeteria is hard work, lemme tell you.

Those 40 kilos of carrots aren't peeling themselves. my back is dying

I've been sick for majority of January because i ended up with bronchitis and it's been kicking my butt for 4 weeks.

I have very little energy but it's been slowly improving, I'm starting to get back to drawing without falling asleep. So I have the freedom to work on art on the weekends where my body has the chance to recover from a hectic week.

The last two weeks i've been manning the deliveries and preparing everything all on my own, i took a massive hit mentally and physically.

Last weekend i also worked as a karaoke host at a local convention, no rest 💀

I'm incredibly sorry for the delays but I promise i AM working and there will be art updates.

Thank you for being so patient!

ai does take some effort to learn though. art (stable diffusion) especially, you can't really type "cute girl" into a box and hope to actually get that; you have to understand how it works, and even when you understand it's a pain in the ass to get anything truly consistent.

i've also seen people pick up art theory and learn how to draw hands so they can better correct the pictures they get from ai. and plus ai isn't really "artificial intelligence"...it isn't "thinking". it's more like, advance applied statistics.

& lbr -- if something Can be easily wholesale replaced by ai (moe girl coomer images or porn, is what i've mostly seen in the art sphere) then it's probably not worth keeping anyway. imo. ai will never be able to replicate a caravaggio painting for example (and i know it can't, i've tried).

in the end it's just another tool i'd really rec looking into design documents & understanding How it actually works first! doomposting helps nobody. peace and love

Dear anon,

All due respect, I do not respect you at all. Fucking incredibly condescending to assume that because I oppose the fucked up technology you love, that I don’t understand it. Do you think I’d be “doomposting” so heavily if I had not kept up with the progression of AI in the last 3-ish years?

Oh boo hoo, you have to take 10 extra minutes to craft a good prompt for the art stealing technology to spit something good out. You might even have to keep refreshing it! Won’t someone please think of the difficult plight faced by AI users? But that’s besides the point, especially because at the rate AI is evolving, these slight barriers to entry, and quirks in the output (such as hands) are dissolving as we speak.

And visual art is only one side of the equation. Text generating AI is about to be incorporated into any major search engine that hopes to compete, it’s already being used to write papers for students and academics alike, it’s already being used to program things that used to take weeks in just minutes, it’s already being used to write books. As the technology becomes woven deeper and deeper into everything we use in our daily lives, not only will it take the “doing” out of living, but will serve to amplify the negative biases already observed (and observed by the AI in its training sets) in society. And in the name of capitalism and competition, the major companies funding AI research are discarding their teams to monitor these ethics as mere burdens in the way of profit.

Any potential positive benefits of AI will be massively and completely outweighed by the predicted and unpredicted consequences. AI is evolving faster than any technology in the history of mankind. The statistics on its improvement are harrowing. Legislation is notoriously slow to adapt to normal technological progress, and this is anything but normal. The only hope, in my opinion, of controlling AI’s negatives while preserving positives would be to halt all research and progress now and spend years developing guidelines before it is unchained again. This is, of course, impossible— especially as creation of AI democratizes and spreads into the hands of average people, which is happening right now.

Just because we can make this technology, should we? Humans are so blinded by the concept of “technological progress” as a blanket good thing that we do not stop to think before we blindly push it forward. I feel the same way about space colonization, by the way.

What Will Destroy AI Image Generation In Two Years?

You are probably deluding yourself that the answer is some miraculous program that will "stop your art from being stolen" or "destroy the plagiarism engines from within". Well...

NOPE.

I can call such an idea stupid, imbecilic, delusional, ignorant, coprolithically idiotic and/or Plain Fucking Dumb. The thing that will destroy image generation, or more precisely, get the generators shut down is simple and really fucking obvious: it's lack of interest.

Tell me: how many articles about "AI art" have you seen in the media in the last two to three months? How many of them actually hyped the thing and weren't covering lawsuits against Midjourney, OpenAI/Microsoft and/or Stability AI? My guess is zilch. Zero. Fuckin' nada. If anything, people are tired of lame, half-assed if not outright insulting pictures posted by the dozen. The hype is dead. Not even the morons from the corner office are buying it. The magical machine that could replace highly-paid artists doesn't exist, and some desperate hucksters are trying to flog topically relevant AI-generated shots on stock image sites at rock-bottom prices in order to wring any money from prospective suckers. This leads us to another thing.

Centralized Models Will Keel Over First

Yes, Midjourney and DALL-E 3 will be seriously hurt by the lack of attention. Come on, rub those two brain cells together: those things are blackboxed, centralized, running on powerful and very expensive hardware that cost a lot to put together and costs a lot to keep running. Sure, Microsoft has a version of DALL-E 3 publicly accessible for free, but the intent is to bilk the schmucks for $20 monthly and sell them access to GPT-4 as well... well, until it turned out that GPT-4 attracts more schmucks than the servers can handle, so there's a waiting list for that one.

Midjourney costs half that, but it doesn't have the additional draw of having an overengineered chatbot still generating a lot of hype itself. That and MJ interface itself is coprolithically idiotic as well - it relies on a third-party program to communicate with the user, as if that even makes sense. Also, despite the improvements, there are still things that Midjourney is just incapable of, as opposed to DALL-E 3 or SDXL. For example, legible text. So right now, they're stuck with storage costs for the sheer number of half-assed images people generated over the last year or so and haven't deleted.

The recent popularity of "Disney memes" made using DALL-E 3 proved that Midjourney is going out of fashion, which should make you happy, and drew the ire of Disney, what with the "brand tarnishing" and everything, which should make you happier. So the schmucks are coming in, but they're not paying and pissing the House of Mouse off. This means what? Yes, costs. With nothing to show for it. Runtime, storage space, the works, and nobody's paying for the privilege of using the tech.

Pissing On The Candle While The House Burns

Yep, that's what you're doing by cheering for bullshit programs like Glaze and Nightshade. Time to dust off both of your brain cells and rub them together, because I have a riddle for you:

An open-source, client-side, decentralized image generator is targeted by software intended to disrupt it. Who profits?

The answer is: the competition. Congratulations, you chucklefucks. Even if those programs aren't a deniable hatchet job funded by Midjourney, Microsoft or Adobe, they indirectly help those corporations. As of now, nobody can prove that either Glaze or Nightshade actually work against the training algorithms of Midjourney and DALL-E 3, which are - surprise surprise! - classified, proprietary, blackboxed and not available to the fucking public, "data scientists" among them. And if they did work, you'd witness a massive gavel brought down on the whole project, DMCA and similar corporation-protecting copygrift bullshit like accusations of reverse-engineering classified and proprietary software included. Just SLAM! and no Glaze, no Nightshade, no nothing. Keep the lawsuit going until the "data scientists" go broke or give up.

Yep, keep rubbing those brain cells together, I'm not done yet. Stable Diffusion can be run on your own computer, without internet access, as long as you have a data model. You don't need a data center, you don't need a server stack with industrial crypto mining hardware installed, a four-year-old gaming computer will do. You don't pay any fees either. And that's what the corporations who have to pay for their permanently besieged high-cost hardware don't like.

And the data models? You can download them for free. Even if the publicly available websites hosting them go under for some reason, you'll probably be able to torrent them or download them from Mega. You don't need to pay for that either, much to the corporations' dismay.

Also, in case you didn't notice, there's one more problem with the generators scraping everything off the Internet willy-nilly:

AI Is Eating Its Own Shit

You probably heard about "data pollution", or the data models coming apart because if they're even partially trained on previously AI-generated images, the background noise they were created from is fucking with the internal workings of the image generators. This is also true of text models, as someone already noticed by having two instances of ChatGPT talk to each other, they devolve into incomprehensible babble. Of course that incident was first met with FUD on one side and joy on the other, because "OMG AI created their own language!" - nope, dementia. Same goes for already-generated images used to train new models: the semantic segmentation subroutines see stuff that is not recognized by humans and even when inspected and having the description supposedly corrected, that noise gets in the way and fucks up the outcome. See? No need to throw another spanner into the machine, because AI does that fine all by itself (as long as it's run by complete morons).

But wait, there's another argument why those bullshit programs are pointless:

They Already Stole Everything

Do you really think someone's gonna steal your new mediocre drawing of a furry gang bang that you probably traced from vintage porno mag scans? They won't, and they don't need to.

For the last several months, even the basement nerds that keep Stable Diffusion going are merely crossbreeding the old data models, because it's faster. How much data are Midjourney and OpenAI sitting on? I don't exactly know, but my very scientific guess is, a shitload, and they nicked it all a year or two ago anyway.

The amount of raw data means jack shit in relation to how well the generator works. Hell, if you saw the monstrosities spewed forth by StabilityAI LAION default models for Stable Diffusion, that's the best proof: basement nerds had to cut down on the amount of data included in their models, sort the images, edit the automatically generated descriptions to be more precise and/or correct in the first place and introduce some stylistic coherence so the whole thing doesn't go off the rails.

And that doesn't change the fact that the development methodology behind the whole thing, proprietary or open-source, is still "make a large enough hammer". It's brute force and will be until it stops being financially viable. When will it stop being financially viable? When people get bored of getting the same kind of repetitive pedestrian shit over and over. And that means soon. Get real for a moment: the data models contain da Vinci, Rembrandt, van Gogh, and that means jack shit. Any concept you ask for will be technically correct at best, but hardly coherent or well thought-out. You'll get pablum. Sanitized if you're using the centralized corporate models, maybe a little more horny if you're running Stable Diffusion with something trained on porn. But whatever falls out of the machine can't compete with art, for reasons.

TBWF Reread Ch0

Here it is, the start of my reread of the The Boy Who Fell, with analysis and an accompanying drawing or sketch each chapter. I'm doing this as a combination of a few things I want to do, namely reread TBWF and get better at art.

Not sure how I want to order this in the future, for now I'll do art first and then analysis.

Chapter 0 is fairly short so I don't have much to say. The striking solid red cover does a great job establishing the tone and prevents readers from getting the wrong impression from the majority of chapter 0 before Ren is pulled off the roof. Even while the basic school plot is happening, the reader wonders what that chapter cover was about and what the deal is with the ominous past tense narration.

It's interesting seeing Yuu's characterization here. You don't learn a ton about him in this one short chapter, but he's definitely different to how his characterization is later solidified in Springtime of Yuuth. Visually different as well, not just in art style which obviously shifted over time but in terms of body language and posing as well.

Ren's characterization is very nicely introduced here. Throughout the chapter, the narration in Ren's voice is going back through the events that transpired and trying to think over what he could have done differently. The nervous self-doubt is mixed with self deprecation, as Ren states that he is "simply bad luck". Ren stating that "Yuu had nothing to do with it" and that it was just his own bad luck shows him solely blaming himself for negative occurrences that are—though not entirely out of his control—decidedly influenced by other factors; this stays true of his character up to late in the series, where he finally starts to accept that the things he was pushed to do are proof that he is a victim too, not that he has committed unforgiveable acts. This isn't to say that Yuu is at fault here; the roof edge was precarious, but an eldritch tendril from hell pulling Ren off is the problem, Ren would not have fallen otherwise. This is just an early indication of a larger part of his character. Ren is also shown to be someone with little to no social connections and a pushover when it comes to someone with more self confidence than him, other aspects of his character that are relevant early on though not as long lived as his self-deprecating blame.

My favorite panel of the chapter is the last one on page twelve. The composition is very striking, with the directly top down view as Ren is being pulled off the roof and is now parallel to the ground facing up at the sky. This wonderfully recontextualizes the very first page, the only color page of the chapter, which is devoted to a full view of the sky. Though not the exact view Ren would see when falling, page two (as the copyright notice is technically page one) definitely conveys a different tone with the context of how the chapter ends. Page twelve is also the best view of Ren in the chapter, providing a full body depiction. This is the moment when you see Ren in the most detail in chapter 0: right as everything goes to hell.

My Art

I was definitely overambitious here for my first time ever drawing a scene in a digital art program. The perspective proved to just be too tricky, so Ren and Yuu's sizes don't quite match up; Ren in particular has a massively wide chest, strange proportions I was not intending. I wanted to try and shade things with screentone to replicate somewhat the look of the comic earlier on, but I didn't actually reference and see how star tended to use screentone so it's not quite the same. Overall though, I think I had a good concept for the piece and that the composition is fine even if the anatomy and proportions are all out of wack. There are things I decided to not go back and fix because I don't want to strive for perfection on every piece; I feel like I'm more likely to improve faster if I keep making new pieces rather than tweaking one until I'm absolutely satisfied with it. Real missed opportunity though to just make the sun the sun, I realized afterwards it would have been really cool to have made it the Hell Kitchen logo.

I gained a lot more familiarity with shortcuts and navigating layers, so it's nice to already have noticeable improvement even just from when I started this drawing to when I finished.

February 2nd (Status Report) + February 2nd (202X Tutorial Update) Review

I wanted to apologize to everyone who is reading this, particularly Dev, for the current absence of reviews. I haven't had the time to truly be online, much less write anything longer than two sentences, because I've been so busy changing jobs and homes. Now that I've found a home and a job that suits me, I can carry on reviewing YanDev's WordPress!

Yes, I'm going back to Feb2, which is when my next review was supposed to be done. Dev is understandably taking a break from working on the game, thus this is as good a time as any to resume reviewing. I'm hoping that he sees these encouraging words and has something to look forward to during the next months.

I'll review everything having seen (almost) all the updates I know now (obviously), and I'll comment about how much better it gets with time, based on how well I think it was done back then. For the sake of lengthening this post and, well, for Dev's sake as well, I'll be examining the two Feb2 posts at the same time. 🩷

I begin.

I'm really happy that Dev finished the tutorial cutscenes! I'm really ecstatic knowing how wonderfully done it is. It's stunning and fluid on top of that. Compliments to the chef! Dev wants to make adjustments to the animations even after they are finished, ensuring their quality and completion. Knowing how much he was going to do at the moment made me so eager for the massive build that was about to be released.

For the intro animation's adjustments? Hauntingly gorgeous. It's a lovely touch to use the glass fragments as a symbol for how truly damaged Ayano feels. The smallest visual enhancements can make an already excellent animation even better, provided the art isn't compromised. There's a perfect balance of everything here! It's good to see him improve on what's already there; I really appreciate the direction he's taking everything in.

The game's update and how long it will be before the next one is released are covered in the following section. In all honesty, I find it hard to see why anyone would think that tutorials are generally a waste of time. I agree that tutorials are important and shouldn't be avoided, but seasoned veterans of all sorts of games wouldn't understand that! But Yandere Simulator is so complex and detailed that I feel a tutorial is very necessary.

Anyway, it is understandable why he might want to put the update off for a little while longer. Imagine creating a game this size and being prepared to add this large update to it. The game is strongly supported and shaped ever so slightly by the tutorial level, which also gives the impression that the game is getting near to feeling and being more complete! Making a YouTube video is a cool idea, but I can also see why he would be torn on such a significant choice as that. So I can definitely support the last listed con.

Making it the "newest" video on the channel would inevitably draw in the wrong crowd. While I consider the game's tutorial to be a significant achievement, the regular trolls and detractors might not agree. It's the fundamentals—something that introduces you to the game and helps you understand its mechanics. YanSim's growth has been a challenging process from the start. Making this tutorial now is entirely justified. Cut him some slack!

This makes a seamless segue into the next post, in which he announces his decision to refrain from posting a video about it to his main channel. Well played, Dev! Moving it to your secondary channel, where all of your other content is posted, is much smarter. It fits in well. (Thanks Cameron for providing the tutorial's audio! You were outstanding in all you did. I'm proud of you. Your work is fantastic.)

As someone who has completed the 202X tutorial, I can tell you right away that I adore it. It's well-designed and a lot of fun to do. Despite the fact that I already knew how to play the game, I found it to be a truly enjoyable experience, especially after a brief break! It was also wonderful to see Kokona in the spotlight once more! She's always been one of my favorite characters, so seeing her again made me quite pleased.

I have always wanted to make a game, with a tutorial to boot. And after being in numerous classes and doing all the research I possibly could to see where I could start out, seeing the tutorial of this game inspires me! Dev couldn't have released this at such a better time. A solid tutorial all around. Easy to understand, control, and finishing it didn't feel frustrating or overly-complicated.

Making a game, with a tutorial to boot, has long been a goal of mine. And after being in numerous classes and doing all the research I possibly could to see where I could start out, none of them truly inspired me the way this game does. This release by Dev couldn't have come at a better time! A strong tutorial overall. It was easy to understand, control, and complete; it didn't feel difficult or needlessly complicated.

(The idea of a custom level maker similar to that of the Final Test sounds like such a great idea. I'd play the hell out of it if that was ever a thing. The possibilities and videos on that would be endless.)

I have gushed about 1980s mode for so long. Still do. The prior rival introduction cutscenes were enjoyable to watch, but I always pondered how it would have seemed with actual cutscenes. I used to constantly experiment in my head with numerous angles and possibilities. And it appears that my wish has finally come true! These brand-new, diverse scenes are all exquisite, with amazing attention to detail! I frequently replayed the mode to see if I had missed anything in these sequences, and I'm always amazed every time I do. The quality and the passion are both present. It's genuinely excellent!

(I'm also impressed with the volunteer's work with the "Senpai meets Amai" cutscene. Feels really good, refreshing, and brilliant. Props to them as well!)

To me, the concept of a small town prototype has always been, well, huge to me. I've always found it fascinating to imagine exploring a town as Ayano and seeing other people interact. Sadly, I am unable to locate any concept pictured that I recall drawing at the time. But? I do recall Dev's post on Feb25 where he had a what-if idea of what it may be like to wander around a small town, and I just melted! I couldn't have asked for a finer picture of what it could be like.

New animations, enhancements, and bug fixes follow from here. For all of which, Dev deserves all the praise! Thanks to his diligence and perseverance, everything feels tidy and well-done. Dev has often demonstrated to us that effort and dedication are crucial, especially with significant updates like this. Congratulations to everyone, including Dev! He gathers everyone and does his share to ensure that everything is well-organized and, in the end, stylish and beautiful.

This update is enormous, magnificent, and wonderfully imaginative! I'm happy I waited since I absolutely adore this game and how it's being developed. I'm excited to go through all the other posts and give it the attention it still deserves. Endless acclaim and appreciation, even for small achievements.

Until next time! It's good to be back.

Pokemon: Shiny vs. Default, 0058-0059

Alright, today we’re tackling a favourite of many, Growlithe and Arcanine.

I’ll be honest, I’m not as wild about this line as others. Growlithe really suffered from the Stone Evolutions Don’t Get New Moves rule from Gen I-VII. No Flamethrower until Lv.50 in the first few generations? Fixing that in Gen V but making its more desirable physical moves like Flare Blitz and Outrage take until the mid 40s? Thank fuck for Gen VIII upending that and massively buffing Arcanine as a result, I finally got to use one without it dying in the late 30s when its stats fall off too much for it to last.

Meanwhile Vulpix gets everything it needs by the mid 30s.

Griping aside, here’s Growlithe itself.

I don’t dislike the yellow, but that mucus-green colour is back, and looking as awful as ever. Default wins.

Now, Hisuian Growlithe’s turn.

That’s better. The green tinge is gone from its muzzle, and the floof on the head and tail stay the same as the default. That said, I still find myself preferring the default, as the red-orange looks great. No shade, I wouldn’t say no to the shiny, but I overall say that default wins.

Next up, Arcanine.

Unfortunately, this is the same as the base form. The yellow’s decent, but the tinge of green in the floof just looks terrible. Default wins.

Finally, Hisuian Arcanine.

Once again, the Hisuian form is a massive improvement via removing the green from the equation. I also think the yellow works even better, thanks to the contrast with the dark grey mane and smoky bits. Overall I’m going to call this one a draw.

Default: 50 Shiny: 24 Draw: 11

Back to Tumblr and situation with Twitter

Hello everyone. It’s been a while since I made a last post on Tumblr and never posted anything. And there are reasons which I’ll tell here.

After 24th of February, everything change in my life as an artist and a person. In my country there is war that russia started. No, russia INVADED to my country and committed Genocide on Ukrainians (and still continue doing this!). For some time I couldn’t normally do things that I earlier did in peaceful time. I was afraid of my parents’ life and my sister’s, so I even did some preparations for situations if these “murderers” invade to city where I live. 

After I calmed down a bit and was sure that everything is safe for now, I started to think about how I’d organize myself with drawing arts and where to post. For some time I tried to stay on Tumblr and  on Twitter at the same time. But after I met many amazing artists from Ukraine, I moved to Twitter because I thought that I found the right place and support. Don’t get me wrong, I had your support here, but last days, I felt like I didn’t do enough to get your support as an artist. Meeting with amazing people on Twitter gave me much inspiration for drawing and motivated me to stay strong. On Twitter we gathered together to help and support each other, even with promoting Ukrainian art by posting, liking and retweeting, and also sharing some Ukrainian culture. It was a wonderful feeling.

..... until one moment that caused the reason for me to make this post.

Maybe some of you know that the idiot, Elon Musk (I’ll call him idiot because he is!), decided to buy a Twitter and make some changes. And these changes will affect on us as artist but in very bad way. The one change that I remember (if I remember correctly) is that if you want to continue using the blue Verified badge on Twitter, you need to pay 8$ per month for it. Otherwise, your tweets will lost in algorithms or will be shadow banned (I don’t know if I wrote this correctly, so, you have right to correct me, thank you). These changes made a huge impact on us as artists who used Twitter as better alternative, or just place where we could share our artwork. And it’s not only about artists, but also some official charity accounts, or official funds whose tweets will not be noticing on Twitter. You can search for some articles about these changes, or read here: https://www.fastcompany.com/90804776/elon-musk-massive-changes-twitter-one-week

You can also watch this interview about Twitter changes (timestamp: 31:10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7wUNMyK3Gs&t=1s

That is why I’ll come back to Tumblr and will stay here until situation improves. This situation really upsets me and others because I found many amazing artists from my country and they gave me a hope to continue with artwork. Some arts from Twitter I’ll post here and also probably will do an update for my pricelist of commissions. I’m sorry that I left you guys here and I hope that you’re safe and healthy. I don’t know what to add here because I think that it’s enough for this. I’ll still use Twitter, but only to see if anything changes (hope for good).

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jennyart626

Stay safe!

P.S.: Elon Musk, if you see this, you’re piece of shit!      

going to start posting wips here instead of twt. i want to draw more group scenes and backgrounds and just generally be more ambitious, even though my main focus is and always has been improving how my people look i wanna get better at everything. this is an idea i thought of for an anniversary drawing and i decided to just go ahead and do it now

also soft-painting-small looks bad at big sizes huh maybe that's. why it's named that (i don't have a go-to sketch/line brush in krita i just keep trying different things)

anyway i used csp more again in the last month bc a) i had a new ssd and Could b) still adapting to krita and it was stressing me out and i was trying to improve my anatomy and struggling bc learning to use krita was slowing me down. but being reminded of how much celsys sucks and how i need to not rely on csp sticking around made me start working on adjusting to krita again

thoughts on that below the cut (rambly and definitely not of interest to anyone who isn't also extremely interested in digital art programs)

like i said my main motivation in making the switch: celsys sucks and is untrustworthy. krita's excellent filter variety and way way better brush engines and amazing paintbrushes are huge incentives also though and i think given time and money and support it could easily outdo csp.

csp has so many impressively flashy features that i just...did not use or find useful in application. like the 3d models - couldn't get them working at all on my old computer and then when i could on this one...they're hard to pose, finicky, don't look as good as similar modeling programs, etc etc...i just did not end up using them much and when i did i didn't really know how and they often made things look worse. really they were only good for doing like. fashion poses for outfit design when i didn't want to spend time on the anatomy. vector brushes didn't work for me at all and just made my lineart look really stiff and uglier than ever (and then i decided to ditch lineart altogether which. smart move i think bc it is not my friend.) basically csp has loads of what look like incredible time saving features on its homepage etc, and then in actual execution i didn't really find any of them practical to use. *paul hollywood voice* all style no substance

ANYWAY all of that being said the only things i really miss from csp are the one click export buttons, the change layer to drawing color button, and finally and most of all just the general performance and practicality of it. csp is designed for a reasonable newbie to pick up and use. not quite as much so as like sai or medibang but pretty accessible. krita is just. not. at all. probably the hardest of these programs to learn from a technical standpoint. it just has SO MUCH and is generally made by and for people with above average tech skills which can make it more confusing. like the way layers and groups work is fundamentally different from the common, accepted way ps/csp/sai/everybody uses. and sure maybe alpha inherit is technically Better than clipping masks but it also makes things more challenging and less accessible. very linux design yknow. it is harder to just open krita up and Use It without looking up how to do specific things, it is harder to get away without reading documentation and watching youtube tutorials and memorizing keyboard shortcuts, you need to know how layers work and how to cut down memory usage in a file, basically you can't cut corners in learning krita like you can with similar programs (esp if you are like me and have been playing in said programs since you were. maybe 4)

and of course all that being said krita is a small dev team making an open source free product, whereas celsys adobe etc have massive teams and $$$ at their disposal so of course it is not apples to oranges and this is not a criticism of the krita foundation, just that it makes the product harder to learn and use and i get why people are turned off by that. i'm turned off by it! and all this hinges on your pc even running krita because it is more demanding than most (in most cases i've seen at least. definitely seen some people say they have issues with csp and can run krita, computers weird.) but it sucks that a few features are prone to issues no matter what. as cool and intriguing as so many of the features are...gmic plugin is crashy and liquify tool just lags to the point it's unusable. :(

but i don't want to end on a negative note and make it sound like i hate krita, krita's great, it's just never felt quite as natural as sai and csp have in the past so that makes things more uphill with it. but i'm trying. and trying to get over my Very Bad Social Anxiety to post on krita-artists and ask for help from *shudders* Knowledgeable Strangers when i don't understand things

anyway uhhh krita is hard and art is hard but i think it'll be worth it and also fuck celsys