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marshallpupfan · 2 years

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My Marshall Collection! (June, 2022)

It's been a while since I've shown off my Marshall collection! Things are a little different now, so I figure now's as good a time as any!

For those of you that missed it, I recently replaced my old display case because the sides were starting to bulge. Fortunately, I was able to find another one for a low price, not to mention it looks much nicer, too! It was about six inches wider though, so it couldn't fit in the same spot. To give everything more space, I ended up rearranging my entire room to place my collection on the opposite wall. Imo, I think it looks better than it did before!

And much like the last time I posted pics of my collection, I figured I'd briefly talk about each section. Well, let's get started!

Over on the left, you'll find the majority of my plush dolls, as well as a few other things here and there. Not too much has changed, except I was able to make the shelves on the wall much wider, so now I can fit more up there whenever I purchase more plush dolls (or other items, such as a few Marshall backpacks I have my eye on).

Over in the corner, you'll find some books! For these, I decided to focus on ones that center around Marshall, or he's the biggest pup featured on the cover. In truth, I'll be replacing this bookshelf eventually, since there's not much room left for the other books I plan on purchasing. Hopefully I'll find something that'll work out better.

This mini shelf seen one of the bigger changes. Previously, it had a bunch of plush dolls, but I decided to relocate them in order to make room for DVDs! Much like the books, I focused on ones about Marshall or he's the biggest pup featured on the cover. And similar to the books, I have a few more I plan on buying despite the little room I have left. Yeah... I'm not sure how I'll solve this issue yet. lol

This smaller bookshelf is a new addition. I originally had other plans for it, but because my new display case is too tall to place the larger plush dolls on top again, I had to relocate them here.

In the middle of my collection is my TV, once again showing off my Laptop wallpaper! And of course, my Ready Race Rescue theatrical poster is right above it! There's a window right behind it, so just pretend those are theater curtains or something. lol

On the right, we've got my new display case... but before that, take a look at the items on the wall next to it! Also, I had to retake this picture later, and I totally forgot to turn the TV back on. Oops!

Here, you'll find my EMT Marshall wall art, the badges that came with some figurines, two walkie-talkies, artworks sent to me by a friend, and a bunch of framed pictures I printed off. Seeing as how the new display case doesn't stick out as far as the old one, I was able to fit in a few more, though I replaced a few, too. The new pictures include Sheep-disguise Marshall, EMT Marshall, Marshall sleeping with Squeakin'Beam, Marshall covered in stickers, and still one of my personal favorite outfits, Marshall in his Rescue Knights armor!

On the bottom of the Display case, we've got Marshall's many vehicles! I decided to rearrange them a bit differently this time, so most of them are all together now. I had to stick two on the floor, but I kinda like it like that.

Because the new display case is wider, I was able to get both his Ultimate Fire Truck and Movie Fire Truck on the same shelf. I decided to place the True Metal vehicles in front of them. The smaller, plastic vehicles were placed elsewhere.

Above that, you'll find the majority of the figurines! Many of them are Marshall wearing his usual fireman gear, but of course, there are so many other outfits on display, such as him in his Ultimate Fire Gear, his Pup-Fu Gi, all versions of his Mighty Pups super suits, Rescue Knights, Dino Rescue, Moto Pups, etc.! That new step shelf I made for them a few months ago doesn't fill up the entire shelf, so I stuck one of those big toys at the end to fill up the space. I think it works!

Nearing the middle, we've got the biggest shelf housing most of my bigger, non-plush items. The Marshall-shaped shampoo bottle (imported from the UK), two bubble makers, ceramic piggy (puppy?) banks, bobble heads, an alarm clock, that large piñata I always struggle to find a spot for, that large multi-color face lightbulb, among other things. The smaller vehicles were relocated here, since there wasn't much room for them with the other vehicles.

Many other various items are right above that, including a talking coin bank (also imported from the UK), coffee mugs, bath toys, a bunch of Christmas ornaments, some candy dispensers, etc.. Admittedly, this is my favorite out of all the shelves.

Nearing the end of my collection, we've got this final shelf displaying additional items, such as the lunch boxes, Good2Grow bottles, the many mini figurines found in those mystery boxes. etc..

Last, on the very top of the display case, we've got the final batch of plush dolls, including the one I recently found for $1 that I cleaned and sewed up!

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And there you go! As Tumblr has a limit of ten images per post, I'm unable to focus on everything I wanted to talk about, so hopefully this does the job well enough. But to think, they've released so much merchandise of one character... and yet, I'm still nowhere close to owning everything of Marshall! Crazy thought, huh?

To say this least, I see this collection as a testament to just how crazy I am about the character. I know I say this often, but this spotted pup really is my #1 favorite animated character of all time! He means a lot to me, which is why I made these MarshallPupFan accounts, why I post daily pics of him, why I enjoy showing off his merchandise, and why I even went as far to purchase my own Marshall mascot costume to represent him in my town's parade (that plan's still pending, however). Seriously, I just love this character to death! In my eyes, he's one of the greats, and I can't imagine PAW Patrol being anywhere near as good without him!

As always, I hope you all enjoyed seeing my collection again! 😁

#PAW Patrol #PAWPatrol #Marshall #Marshall Paw Patrol #MarshallPawPatrol #Paw Patrol Marshall #PawPatrolMarshall #The spin off TV series should've totally been about him lol

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the-chosen-none · 3 years

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An appreciation post for some underrated Fallout 1 characters...

1. Loxley from the Thieves’ Circle!

Possibly a controversial choice so I’m putting him first. He’s tucked away in a little corner of the Hub so a lot of you might not know who he even is, basically he’s like if an Elder Scrolls character got teleported to the Fallout universe by accident and he set up his own knockoff Thieves’ Guild.

I know many people including the devs themselves don’t like him for clashing with the more grounded tone of the rest of the game, but I don’t know man I think he’s funny. The idea that in the middle of this post-apocalyptic landscape there’s this random guy LARPing as Robin Hood is hilarious to me, and one of the devs confirming that his British accent is totally fake makes him even better. He’s trying so hard to look cool. What a dork! I wish there were more than one quest with him.

2. Laura from the Followers of the Apocalypse!

She doesn’t have much to do so there’s not much to say about her, I just think she’s neat. A lot of her charm comes from the line delivery of her voice actress, Kath Souchie, first she starts off with a saccharine tone when she’s in spy mode and then when she drops the act she’s just so done with everyone’s shit. Laura seems like she’d be a cool person to hang out with.

3. Cabbot from the Brotherhood of Steel!!

He looks a little sinister cause his eyes are perpetually shadowed but he’s actually pretty sweet. Sure, he doesn’t tell you about how dangerous the Glow quest is but he’s just so darn polite when he talks to you that you don’t even care. My hc is that Cabbot hoped nobody would be stupid enough to actually try it.

He’s especially cute whenever he talks about how he’s studying to become a Scribe (which you mostly have to find out with the Tell-Me-About), you get the feeling that this big guy isn’t really comfortable in the power armor and he’d rather be studying. How many players joined the Brotherhood just so they could talk to him some more, I wonder?

4. Razor from the Blades!

(She’s the one in the leather jacket in the first pic, I know it’s really small)

Anyway, she’s definitely my favorite non-talking head NPC, although the concept art to the right seems to suggest she was supposed to get one but since the devs were running out of time towards the end they couldn’t implement as many talking heads as they wanted. It’s too bad, I would have loved to hear Razor’s pure rage voice-acted.

Her similar character design to Nicole in the concept art and the commonalities between their roles make me wonder if she was supposed to be seen as a darker counterpart to Nicole. They’re both the leaders of groups in parts of Los Angeles who get dunked on repeatedly by pretty much everyone else around them, but despite their hardships they still have hope of helping the people around them... except they have COMPLETELY different ways of accomplishing their goals.

Although Nicole and the Followers will defend themselves if necessary and will have a few of them help you storm the Cathedral if you ask, for the most part they’re all about peace and spreading knowledge; Razor, on the other hand, will lead the Blades (and Gun Runners) to ANNIHILATE the Regulators in Adytum to free the people under their control and get their revenge, if you help, that is.

I may be looking too deep into things and maybe Nicole and Razor aren’t supposed to be seen as mirror images, since I don’t think they even mention each other, but it’s something I noticed.

I may do another one of these for Fallout 2 characters eventually, but I haven’t explored as much of it through multiple playthroughs yet since it’s so much bigger, so that’ll have to be for a different time.

#fallout #fallout 1 #classic fallout #fallout analysis

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felassan · 3 years

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Mass Effect development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

This is the Mass Effect version of this post.

[In case you can’t read it the subtitle in the bottom left logo above is “Guardians of the Citadel”]

Note: Drug use is mentioned.

Cut for length.

Mass Effect 1

ME began its life in a vision document in fall 2003

Codenamed “SFX”

Conceived of by Casey Hudson and a core team from KotOR. Its genesis was the intention to create an epic sci-fi RPG in an original setting that BioWare owned (so they could have full creative control), and in a setting that was conceived of first and foremost as a video game

Initially players could control any squadmate, but they wanted it to be about Shep and for players to be focused on Shep being a battlefield commander, rather than on switching bodies

By the start of 2004 its story was shaping up. Initially humans landed on Mars in 2250 and discovered evidence of an ancient alien race and a powerful substance, Black Sand, which rapidly advanced tech to the point that FTL travel was possible. (My note: obviously now the Prothean artifacts on Mars & associated mass effect force tech enabled this in the final canon, but I wonder if aspects of the ‘Black Sand’ naming-type & powerful substance stuff was rolled into red sand from final canon) Humans were suddenly capable of travel to multiple star systems and made contact with a multitude of other species. At the start of the first game, these species together with humans had a fragile peace, with focus placed on the political center of the galaxy, a hub known as Star City, later renamed the Citadel

Multiplayer was a vision for the series as far back as 2003. The plan was for ME1, an Xbox exclusive at launch, to take advantage of the platform’s online components. Early designs saw players meeting in one of the central hubs to interact and trade items in their otherwise SP adventures

By 2006 it had the name ME and the story was more specific, with the theme of conflict between organic and synthetic lifeforms. The story’s scope now stretched across 3 games and included scope for full co-op MP

They tried to do MP in every game, discussing it from the get-go, but it always just fell by the wayside. “When you’re trying to build something that is a new IP, on a new platform, with a new engine, you’ve got to really focus on the core elements of the game.”

The conversation system prototype was made in Jade Empire, and some of ME’s earliest writing was done in an old JE build. At first there was no conversation wheel. Paragon was “Friendly” and Renegade “Hostile”. In the prototype Shep was a silent unnamed Spectre. Many conversations in the prototype about the player’s choice in smuggling a weapon through Noveria made it into the game

In said prototype a merchant referred to themselves as “this one”, though the word hanar never appeared. The PC in it also had the option to end a conversation with “I should go”. In the prototype also, Harkin was voiced by Mark Meer

An early version of the Mako got used as the krogan truck in ME2

Early concepts of the Citadel were drawn in pencil by CH. A piece of concept art of its final design was painted based on a photo of a sculpture near Aswan, Egypt

As with any new IP naming it was a struggle. They put out a call to all staff for ideas, did polls, made a name generator that combined words that they liked in random ways and made pretend logos of ones they liked in Photoshop to see if they could make themselves love the name or find visual potential in it. (Some of these names are in the pic at the top of this post.) CH liked “Unearthed” as it was a reference to Prothean ruins dug up on Mars and humanity’s ascendance going away from Earth. They knew the game would have a central space station featuring prominently so some of the ideas were based on that - “The Citadel”, “The Optigon”, “The Oculon”. “Element” was another one they had in mind due to the rare substance in the game

CH: “I was a big fan of John Harris’ book Mass, which had epic-scaled sci-fi ideas, so that was a word that came up often. Many of the names came from the idea that the IP featured a fifth fundamental physical force (in addition to the known four of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) so the word ‘effect’ came up pretty often.” Ultimately none of the ideas really felt right. One Monday morning they were going over the names and Greg Zeschuk said he had an idea on the weekend: “Mass Effect!” CH: “I said, ‘I don’t hate it’, which in the naming process is a high compliment. And it stuck!”

CH on Shep’s Prothean vision from the beacon: “It was hard to imagine how we would do this. CG was - and is - really expensive. Instead I wanted to try doing it through photography and video editing. So I went to a local grocery store and bought a few packages of the weirdest looking meat that I could find. Then I set up a little photoshoot in my basement, complete with some electronics parts and some red wine for juicyness.” He used these props to create a video sequence where the photos were rapidly cycled and blurred, along with production paintings, to create the scary vision an organic/machine experiment on the Protheans. These mashups were also used as inspiration for concept artists and level designers who were working on these themes

Tali used to be called Talsi

On the licensing side they often joke that they’re licensing N7 not “Mass Effect” due to N7′s popularity

There was a confidential internal guide to the IP in 2007 to help devs along and summarize/synthesize the vision etc. Some excerpts from it are shown in the book and this is the first time the public have ever seen them

Early versions of Asari had hair

Asari were designed as a nod to classic TV sci-fi (with human actors wearing obvious makeup and prosthetics to play aliens)

The turian design guideline was “we want them to be birds of prey”. They also wanted a range of alien types, some close to human like Asari, while others were to be a lot further away, like turians

BioWare patented the conversation wheel, which was a first for them. CH had been frustrated with reviews of Jade Empire that said that the actioncentric game was too wordy [with its list dialogue]. “I’m like, story is words. [...] What is it about our games that is making people feel like they’re wordy?” Then he thought “In a game you kind of need to feel like you’re continuing to play it. Maybe you should continue feeling like you’re playing it actively into the dialogue.” “[The wheel] kind of gave a new experience with dialogue when you did start to react based on emotion, and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to bring out in our games”

The original krogan concept was based on a bat “with a really wide squidgy face. We just used its face on top of this weird body and it kinda worked”

Geth musculature was based on fiber-optic cables, with flexible plates of armor attached

The vision for the IP was 80s sci-fi inspired space opera

The concept art of Saren lifting Shep by the throat inspired a similar scene in-game. The staging wasn’t planned til designers saw that art

A squadmate with Shepard on the way to meet Ash in an old storyboard was called Carter. Early name of Kaidan or Jenkins?

Bono from U2 was kinda instrumental in bringing us ME lol

Finding the right cover art for ME1 was notably tricky

Matt Rhodes got his start drawing helmets for ME1, including one which would become Shep’s “second face”. He estimates he drew between 250-270 different ones

Some of the sounds in-game were people smashing watermelons with sledgehammers and sticking fists into various goos

The audio team had fun trying to slip the iconic main theme into unexpected places throughout the MET. “We were very aware of how powerful that track was for the fans and it was tempting to overuse it for any moment we wanted to make really emotional”.

The theme was creatively repurposed in ME3: slowed down and reworked as the ambient sound for the SR-2. “If you listen to it for a really long time, just stand in the Normandy and listen, you’ll actually hear the notes change slowly. It doesn’t sound like music, it sounds like a background ambiance, but it’s there.” (My note: Well no wonder the Normandy feels so much like home?? 😭 sneaky..)

Bug report: “Mako Tornado”. There wasn’t enough friction between the tires and the ground, causing testers to lose control of the vehicle and send it spinning into the air like a tornado. “As it turns, the front end comes up, and then it starts spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning faster and faster and faster until it just flies up in the sky” (My note: Sounds like a regular day in the Mako to me)

Cerberus originally had a bigger role in this game. It was cut but they had a whole explorable outpost. “I called it Misery,” says Mac Walters, “It was this planet with a little outpost that said ‘Welcome to Misery’”. Everything on the outpost was shit - dirty worn stuff, no windows, no kitchen, the vehicle bay was open to the elements etc

The Reaper sound is literal garbage. Some audio designers went on a recording trip to a national park. One of them got fixated on a garbage can, “a metal bear-proof receptacle with a heavy lid that creaked horribly when opened”. “It was like, ominous, spooky, tonal and almost musical. I decided to throw a mic into the garbage and record it moving. I didn’t know what it was going to be until later”

They were making lots of noises to record like throwing logs and rocks around. An old couple peered at them through the window of their camper van in the woods and must have called the cops because then the cops showed up, pulled them over and told them to stop. The cops towed their car (the driver’s plates were Cali plates and expired), drove them to Edmonton outskirts and then the audio producer Shauna got a call and had to go pick them up “like three little boys”. “We got a stern talking to”. Once back they were playing around with the garbage sound, editing it etc. Casey heard it and proclaimed “That’s the sound of the Reapers”

Preston Watamaniuk: “There are things I could have done to Mass 1 to make it an infinitely better game with better UIs” and some simple cuts and changes. “But when you’re living with it, it’s very hard to see those things”

BioWare Labs

As social media and smartphone games exploded, BioWare dedicated a small team dedicated to exploring opportunities here - BioWare Labs

Mass Effect: Galaxy used a unique graphic art style and static visual presentation common in visual novels. It has the distinction of being the only iOS game BW have made during their first 25 years

Scrapped ideas were a 3rd person space shooter called Mass Effect: Corsair and 2 DA titles - a strategy game and a top-down dungeon crawler starring young Wynne. (My note: Maybe the corsairs stuff was rolled into Jacob’s backstory in 2, the Alliance Corsairs)

Corsair was a very short-lived project that never got its feet under it. It was a spin-off on Nintendo DS featuring a behind-the-ship perspective and branching dialogue. At one point it had MP. The idea behind it was basically “ME: Freelancer” - fly your ship around, do missions, get credits. It had a limited branching story but was a gameplay-centered experience intended to fill the gap between ME1 and 2. That gap ended up being filled by Galaxy

Galaxy and Corsair’s smaller screen allowed concept artists to use bold colors and a simplistic character design style to help those games stand out from Shep’s story

Nick Thornborrow did some art for Corsair but was worried his art style didn’t fit ME. He moved to DA where he feels his art style fits better

Lots of BioWare VAs and even a lead writer and the VO director are drawn from Edmonton’s local community theater scene, which is vibrant. Think this is how Mark Meer got involved

Mass Effect 2

Player choices carrying over was a first for BW

Dirty Dozen-inspired plot

Its plot is a web of conditionals (see Suicide Mission)

Was more of a shooter than anything BW had made since Shattered Steel

There was 2 camps on the team, those who wanted to push combat and systems forward and redefine the ME experience and those who wanted to make a true sequel, with the same gameplay and systems but a new story. Karin Weekes: “I think it ended up being a good push-pull. It felt like a pretty healthy creative conflict”

“ME2 was a game you could hold up to someone who argues that games aren’t a serious medium and go ‘Oh yeah, then why is Martin Sheen in this?’” Sheen was their first pick for TIM

The idea for TIM came from a mash-up of concepts CH had collected over the years. The name “Illusive” originally came from his pitch for naming DAO’s Eclipse engine, a word inspired by Obi-Wan’s line “It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something... elsewhere. Elusive”. “I thought, what if we called our next engine 'Elusive', but used an ‘I’, and then it’s like ‘Illusion’. [...] I still really like the word with an ‘I’ and what it conjures”

When ME1 DLC was in production, CH had been watching a lot of CNN, specifically Anderson Cooper. “How is one guy travelling to all these places and never looking tired and always being able to speak with clarity?” CH says it seemed almost superhuman. “What if there was someone who is the absolute maximum of the things you would aspire to be, but also the worst of humanity?” Cooper, though not evil, became an inspiration for TIM down to the gray hair and piercing blue eyes

Inspiration for TIM’s behind-the-scenes role pulling political strings came from Jack Bauer’s brother Graem in 24. Graem “can call up the president and tell him what to do and hang up, because he’s so connected and so influential”. Sheen had played a president and his performance brought gravitas and wisdom to the role. He had quit smoking, but the character smokes. He didn’t want to fake it, but he also didn’t want to smoke, “so he actually asked for a cigarette” to hold so he could stop his words to take drags with natural cadence

Writing was still pushing to write and revise lines hours before VO started. A series of problems like injury and some writers leaving for other opportunities left it so that Karin, Lukas Kristjanson and editor Cookie Everman hand to land the story safely, with PW helping where they could. Lukas: “We took over the writing bug and task list, and I can’t stress enough how much [Karin and Cookie] did to get ME2 out the door. There’s no part of that thing we didn’t touch”. Karin: “That was the most dramatic 2 weeks of my life”

Initial fan reaction when they started promo-ing ME2 was very negative because people didn’t want to know about new chars like Jack and Mordin. “[fans were like] ‘Get them out of here. We want our characters from the first game’. But then when they played them, those became some of the most popular chars [of the series]”

Concept art of Thane has an idea annotation saying “Face can shapeshift?”

At one point when designing Thane concept artists sent multiple variations of him to the team asking them to vote on which was the most attractive

Most of the Normandy crew was written by lead level designer Dusty Everman. Lukas gave him advice in the evenings between bugs

BioWare Montreal made ME2 and 3 cinematics

CC for Shep was based on tools used by char designers to create in-game chars. Under the hood similar tools existed to create aliens

Aliens were much easier to animate than humans. When something is human it’s very difficult to make it look realistic and you can see all the mistakes and everything

Over the holiday period in 2007 CH worked out a diagram on a single piece of paper that would define the entire scope and structure of the game. The diagram is included in the book

Bug report: “I shot a krogan so hard that his textures fell off”. At one point shotgun blast damage was applied to each of the pellets fired, and shot enemies ended up with just the default checkerboard Unreal texture on them after their textures got blown off

Blasto was meant to be 1 step above an Easter egg but his fan popularity prompted them to bring him back in ME3

They rewrote chunks of Jack 2 days before she went to VO. She was the only one they could change because all the other NPCs were recorded. They redesigned her mission by juggling locked NPC lines and changing Shep’s reactions by rewriting text paraphrases to change the context of the already-recorded VO

Lukas snuck obscure nods ito ME2′s distress calls. In the general distress call for the Hugo Gernsback, there’s BW’s initial’s and Edmonton’s phone number backwards. In a fault in a beacon protocol there’s the initials and backward phone number from Tommy Tutone’s “Jenny”. In 2 other general distress calls there’s initials and numbers from Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000″ and initials and numbers from Geddy Lee and Rush’s “2112″ respectively

Mass Effect 3

“The end of an era marks the beginning of another”

ME3 “marked the end of Shep’s story”

Saying bye to Shep was as difficult for devs as it was for players

JHale’s final VO session included Anderson’s death and romanced Garrus’ goodbye. “We were in the session and we both just started crying”, Caroline says. “I couldn’t come on the line to give her notes because I was crying, and she was crying. And so there was just this minute-long pause of like, nothing, nothing, nothing - just silence through the airwaves. And then I came on and just told her that I was crying and she said ‘I’m crying!’” They talked about these anecdotes also here on the N7 Day reunion panel

The Microsoft Kinect voice support required devs to teach Kinect hundreds of commands in a variety of accents across multiple languages. The result was useful but made for some awkward moments. Numerous players accidentally said “geth” or “quarian” while making a particular decision and accidentally killed Tali

MP chars were voiced by cops and military people

The helmet on one of the MP chars was originally designed for cancelled project Revolver

The payload device at the end needed to attach to the Citadel while essentially serving as a giant trigger. “It ended up becoming quite the engineering feet just to visualize how this thing would move and connect to the Citadel”

Concept artists explored creating an anti-team, where Kai Leng was almost an anti-Shepard essentially, with an elite squad to counteract your team. This idea never went beyond concept phase

ME3 Special Edition was released on Nintendo Wii U exclusively. This exclusive version of the game includes Genesis 2 (a sequel to the original Genesis comic) and unique gameplay features that took advantage of the touchscreen GamePad. For years Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood had had the honor of being BW’s only game made for a Nintendo console

FemShep regrettably didn’t feature in major ME marketing til ME3. Later releases like DAI, MEA and Anthem have taken increasing care not to gender their protagonists in cover art

To capture combat sounds they took a trip to CFB Wainwright, a military base southeast of Edmonton. They got a big tour of it and were allowed to record anything they could find. The tour ended with them getting to drive and shoot tanks (real shells). The force of doing that sent waves through Joel Green, he felt his whole chest compress when it went off; the perfect sound for the Black Widow! After the trip the soldiers let him keep the shell he fired and it’s been passed on like a torch to various devs since

Kakliosaurs began life as a joke in the writers’ room after John Dombrow placed a Grunt figure on a t-rex toy he had on his desk. Lore was brainstormed to justify the mash-up before someone asked, “Why don’t we put this in the game?” They loved it so much Karin had custom coffee mugs made

Bug report: For a while Tali’s final romance scene would fire when she was supposed to be dead

“Balancing combat: how designers in ME3 entered an ‘arms race’” - the solution to players feeling OP vs players feeling frustrated by really strong enemies is to find a good middle ground, but for designers Corey Gaspur and Brenon Holmes, it was war. Brenon designed enemies, Corey designed guns. Corey “was obsessed with bigger, heavier guns. We had this sort of informal competition where he’d make this crazy overturned gun that would just murder all the enemies, and then I tuned some stuff up to compensate”

Brenon had to invent new ways to “stop Corey” and this led to the Phantoms. Corey had in turn designed consumable rockets that could wipe out entire waves of enemies. He must’ve figured this would make short work of Brenon’s space ninjas, but Brenon had other plans: “I had just added the ability for her to cut rockets [when Corey was playing MP and he was watching]. She cut the rocket in half... Corey just turns and looks at me and is like: ‘Really dude? I just shot a rocket at this Phantom and she’s fine? Not even damaged? Zero damage?’”

This friendly rivalry helped elevate ME3′s gameplay. Corey had a knack for making a gun feel so good to fire it had his fellow designers scrambling to keep up. It was his version of balancing. Before Corey sadly passed away he mentored Boldwin Li in all things weapon design and the arms race continued

Corey designed the Arc Pistol. It was causing problems for enemies because it was too powerful. It seemed hell bent on staying that way, Boldwin would tune down all its stats and it was still doing 3x the damage it should have been doing. “I was like ‘What the hell?’, and then I looked closer. It secretly fired 3 bullets for every pull of the trigger! Corey, you sneaky jerk”

The day it launched there were midnight launch parties across North America including one near the BW building. Numerous devs sat at long tables greeting fans and signing autographs as the fans picked up preorders. When midnight struck the line was long enough that it took several hours for some fans to get their game. One particular fan is remembered: “It was 3am. Some guy drove up from Calgary with his friends. He was like one of the last people in line. I think he was sort of tired-drunk. He threw himself across the tables, pulled up his shirt and shouted ‘Guys, sign my abs!’ And like I did, because he waited so long. It felt impolite not to. So I hope he enjoyed his copy of ME3″

For designing Protheans concept artists had free reign to design something that read as ancient

Before the concept art team had the story of the game to work toward, they explored wild ideas of their own including an image of the crew stealing back the Normandy to go after the Reapers

Jen Cheverie was testing scenes and was initially excited to be testing Mordin scenes, til she saw she was testing the Renegade version of his death. “This is even before like all of the audio and everything was in, so you didn’t even have the sad music. I remember sitting at my desk and my hands just went to my face when I saw that the gun Shep pulls on Mordin is the gun he gives Shep in ME2. I burst into tears and was crying for the rest of the day. People are waving to me as they walk by and I’m like, ‘It’s ok, I’m just killing my best friend’”

There’s a segment called “Shepard’s story ends”. Casey on the ending: “There’s a whole bunch of things that come together to make it incredibly tense and emotional for players. I think the biggest one was the sense of finality, that whatever it was that happened in that very last moment... was it.”

Wrapping up the story was a massive feat. In a way all of ME3 is an ending. Its final moments were the players’ last with a char they’d been with all the way from Eden Prime

“And while the critical reception of the game was extremely positive, many fans were unsatisfied with the ending, which became one of the most controversial in the history of games.” CH: “We were, on one hand, at the end of a marathon trying to finish the game and the series. But as devs we also knew that there would be more. We knew that we would continue to tell the story. In retrospect, we didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous sense of finality that it would have for people”. He envisioned an ending that posed new questions, something in the tradition of high sci-fi that left players dreaming about what that particular galaxy’s future could hold. “Frankly, there’s a lot more that we could have and should have done to honor the work players put in, to give them a stronger sense of reward and closure”

AAA games are massive undertakings with a million moving parts. Somehow they come together but even the best-planned projects don’t turn out quite like devs hope. From start to end video game production is a series of compromises. It’s rare if not impossible for devs to ship a game they’re entirely happy with. “I think that people imagine that when you finish a game, it’s exactly the way you wanted it to be. But whether people end up loving or hating the final result, we work hard to finish it the best we can, knowing that there’s a lot we would have wanted to do better. I think that’s true of any creative work”

As the dust settled after the initial reaction to the ending and later its epilogue, meant to show the wide-reaching ripple effects of Shep’s final choice, “players emerged mostly asking for one thing”. CH: “Now, most of what we hear, after both ME3 and MEA, is ‘Hey, just go make more Mass Effect’. And that to me is the most important thing. Knowing that players want to return to the ME universe is what inspires us to press on and imagine what comes next”

Mass Effect: Andromeda

By creating a new ME in a new galaxy the team was challenged to put their own visual stamp on the game while keeping it true to the franchise

Being the first ME game on a new gen of consoles meant for more detail

“Massive transport ships called arks populated with salarians, turians, humans, asari and quarians” made the risky jump to the Cluster

MEA was the first time BW had truly codeveloped across 3 studios: Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. The bulk of the work especially early on was done in Montreal, which was composed of a handful of Edmonton expats and heaps of experienced devs who joined from elsewhere specifically to bring a new ME experience to life. Series vets in Edmonton then came on to contribute writing, cinematics, design and QA, along with leadership from creative director Mac Walters and the core Production team. Austin writers and level designers also joined the fray

“It took a new team to take ME beyond the Milky Way”

Mac: “A lot of people in Montreal joined BW as fans of the franchise, so they just had this passion, and it felt like it was more like the days of Jade Empire, where a smaller younger team gets to do something for the first time. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a new IP for me, it felt fresh and new because of that. The team was just super excited to be working on it”

Early plans had the player exploring hundreds of worlds, procedurally generated, allowing for a nearly infinite variety of experiences. But as development wore on, it became clear that the game narrative required more specific, hand-touched level design on each world to keep the story focused and the experience engaging. “The plan was to give players numerous uncharted worlds to explore. Designers worked hard to come up with procedural elements that would make such planets special. Eventually the team made the difficult decision to abandon procedural planets in favor of more memorable hand-touched alien worlds, each with a specific story to tell”

One challenge was defining what ME meant without Shep. Care was given to include many of the MET’s key species. “Ryder recruited turian, asari, krogan and salarian followers”. Like Shep Ryder represents humanity’s hope for a peaceful coexistence among aliens who had long operated without human contact

Beginning with MEA the team decided that with few exceptions vehicles in ME have 6 wheels. Early Nomad concepts were bulkier. Later ones focused on its ability to move over its ability to protect itself from hostile fire, underlining the themes of exploration

German concept designer and auto-motive futurist Daniel Simon was contracted to create the Nomad and Tempest. The Tempest’s final design took inspo from the Concorde

Concepts for angaran fighter ships have the following notes: “Two doors swing open, wings rotate down to function as landing struts, the landing struts split open. It has a spinning turbine engine

Despite being set a galaxy away and some 600 years after Mordin’s death, there was a time when he had a cameo. It wasn’t cut due to running out of time however, it was cut due to drug references. John Dombrow explains: “One day I had to write a small quest for Kadara. I thought it’d be amusing if these 2 guys living way out on the fringes in a shack were growing plants for uh, medicinal purposes, and needed Ryder’s help with it. It occurred to me, wouldn’t it be amusing if Ryder had the option of actually trying ‘the medicine’ to see what would happen? And I thought, what if it turned into some hallucination that somehow involved SAM - like maybe SAM would sing? But why? How could I motivate that? Then it hit me. Who else in the ME game sings unexpectedly? MORDIN. As a nod to him I wrote SAM singing Modern Major-General. It got even better when our cine designer John Ebenger wanted to take it even further. Bless him, he came in on a Saturday to do a special hallucination showing Mordin himself. It was great. Til the fateful day we were told MEA had already been submitted to the ratings board. That’s when you declare things like drug references in your game. Mordin fell under that category which meant it was a no-go. We were too late”

Ryder’s white AI armor contrasts Shep’s iconic dark armor (intentional design)

Concept art for Ryder involved experiments with cloth (cloaks, ponchos, capes - “Pull here to release cloak”) and asymmetrical design elements

For alien design, there’s a few exceptions but humanoid figures are the ME standard and this persisted into MEA

Kett and angara concepts explored striking lines and textures

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

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fandom-blackhole · 3 years

Note

My beloved darling my brain is on overheat, let's get this bread!

Armorer = Andromeda yess, did I tell you that I love your galaxy brain?,

This name can also explains Paz' fixation on the astronomical stuff,

Omg, he'd not only tatoo his babygirl's name but outline of Andromeda galaxy to go with it,

Grogu saying bad words omg,

Next time you and Boba are babysitting him, you are supervising them 25/8,

You let Boba teach Grogu how to swim, since you have a nice huge pool and it does seem harmless right?,

Next second you glance at them, Boba is doing some kind of water wwe with the kiddo, throwing him into the water lol,

LET ME KISS YOUR BRILLIANT MIND,

Also that meme that you've posted earlier of our connected minds is a real manifestation,

Listen, I thought about Rex and Cody too!,

But.. Jaster and Jango omg, honoring great grandpa and grandpa 😍,

Well since you and Boba have a big house, there is no problem with having more than two children,

Omg imagine the future vision of Grogu, Jango, Jaster, Rex and Cody being protective over Andromeda also sibling goals!,

Shit we need names for little Djarins tho,

I believe in you since you came with these brilliant ideas for Paz and Boba's children,

Boba playing guitar and singing for you,

He is secretly a big old fashioned romantic,

Also your jewelry collection must be worth more than entire national reserve lmfao,

Since Boba likes cowboys, space or not, he bought you a pony yeehaaw,

And you've had enough practice with riding, right? 😉,

Paz is really crafty, obviously,

He makes you flowercrowns using flowers from his little garden 🥺,

Boba saw your tumblr and decided to sign up too,

He immediately got attacked in the dms by those obnoxious, p0rn bots,

''Princess, why are random people asking me if I am looking for a sugar daddy? What is this bulshittery'',

You tell him to ignore these messages and that there is no point in responding because these are bots,

He doesn't get it, responding to every single one of them with I WILL FIND WHERE YOU LIVE YOU COCKSUCKER,

He actually commands his best hackers to find who is behind all of this shitshow lol,

No one messes with the Fetts, even bots,

Din doing your make up?,

Since he does a lot of drawing and doodling both in class and with Grogu his skills are pretty decent,

He'd even manage to put fallsies on you!,

I feel that Paz could totally slay your looks,

You'd be beaten to the gods, it's like mixing and adding ingredients so he's got you!,

Boba on the other hand is pro at smudging your lipstick and making your face stained by tears mixed up with mascara 😉,

Also Paz knitting???,

Making cute matching socks for him, you and Aurora and Ad'ika??? 😍,

When Din is home alone he vents to Crest about his existential crisis,

She just throws one of Grogu's plushies at him,

Boba asks if he can post pics of Fennec too,

You agree but under one condition,

You will send him pics done by you that he can post lol,

Paz, Boba and Din brotherly bonding st the shooting range,

They set up a little tournament,

But they all are so good,

Boba and Paz obviously have the work experience, but Din?

Auntie Armorer being a bad ass she is, trained Din and Paz in some martial arts and how to use a gun,

Grogu sneaking up on them and shooting straight bullseye lol,

Getting drunk with them?

Paz, due to his larger frame can drink a lot and still feel somewhat sober,

But when he is wasted he becomes even more of a goofball, wrecking chaos wherever you guys were partying at,

Din becomes drunk easly,

And he gets all blushy on his face,

Also he becomes really touchy and handsy with you 😉,

Boba being drunk?

Yeah, I think he can only become pussydrunk 😳😳😳

Okay sorry darling, but I need to calm down, I became too distracted after the last bit - 🐣

Listen there is no calm over here, and don't apologize for all of this beautiful masterpiece....

So names for Din's kids.... for a girl I like the name Farrah or Luna and for a boy what about Jax??

Boba totally tries to go behind your back and teach little Grogu things

You only find out about them because he tries to teach kids at school the same things and Din freaks out

All of the kids are super close and they all are protective of eachother

Especially little Andromeda, because she's just softer and more caring and she is the target when other kids are around

Rex and Cody are pretty much attached at the hip, doing everything together, and you and Boba aren't sure how but Rex was born with blonde hair, and Cody has a birthmark spanning where his scar is in the movies/show

Boba singing and playing the guitar? Be still my beating heart

Boba singing the the babies to sleep!!!!

Boba owning enough horse for all of you to go horse back riding when ever you want to

Boba has a movie theater in his house

BOBA BEING ON TUMBLR AND JUST GETTING PORN BOTS MESSAGING HIM LEFT AND RIGHT

Boba totally messages them all and tells them to fuck off he already has a princess

Listen Din is actually super good at art, and he loves when you let him do your make up

Grogu loves when Din does HIS makeup

Paz also is so good at making your base makeup look fucking flawless and natural and you aren't sure how he does it

And Boba is the KING of giving you that, just fucked look 😉😉

Paz knitting?!?!? 2739203/10 best image ever

He totally makes Andromeda's baby blanket as well as a bigger matching one for you

Din, Paz, and Boba totally get together every couple of months, especially if they haven't seen eachother in a bit

The Armorer definitely made sure her boys could defend themselves because she didn't want to see them hurt

Grogu is a total natural at shooting, but Boba will claim that he taught it to him because of the babysitting incident

GETTING SMASHED WITH THE BOYS!!

Din definitely can't hold his liquor and he talks so much more with no filter when he is drunk

He also will try to shove his hand down your pants, even if you are in public so watch out

You aren't even sure Boba can get drunk, but he does love drinking with you

Or better yet, drinking you 😉😉

Paz is totally a giggly drunk, and he always thinks he comes up with the best ideas but they are always terrible

But he does come up with some pretty good recipes while drunk

God imagine family dinners with all of the kids and Paz cooking 🥺🥺

Paz would be so overjoyed if you got a tattoo that symbolizes him

You both getting the mando vows tattooed in mando'a!!!!

Bob totally fills all the dad role with the kids so well

You find him telling them stories before bed and giving them each kisses on the forehead

(SEND ME THOTS!!!)

#🐣 anon #modern au #din djarin x reader #din x reader #boba fett x reader #boba x reader #paz vizsla x reader #paz x reader

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morganaseren · 4 years

Photo

So since chapter 17 of OtSttCA deals with Niamh meeting the Champion of Kirkwall, let me introduce you all to Emrys Hawke, my Reaver Warrior from DA2!

So she takes after her father Malcolm with the dark hair and light blue eyes (in my headcanon anyway). Her hair is like Niamh’s in that it’s more of an asymmetrical cut, but the length of it is less wavy in comparison. Honestly, I tend to headcanon that she used her sword to cut away most of the bulk of it one day post-Kirkwall when she goes into hiding. The rest of it is just kept in a ponytail that trails down to mid-back, which you can see a hint of in that last pic.

Of the scars she has, the one she has over the eye was courtesy of Meredith during their battle together. The one splitting the corner of her lip is actually from Aveline, who I believe was wearing gauntlets at the time. Did you guys know that Aveline throws you down to the floor and punches you repeatedly if your rival points are high enough?? In any case, Emrys let her get one good punch in before she retaliated, and the fight had to be stopped by Isabela surprisingly enough. Lol. The final scar across her cheek was when she was helping Isabela with a sea raid.

More background info on her below the cut!

Emrys has strong feelings over the concept of family.

Her father was a man she deeply respected. He went out of his way to help others--even when the situation usually meant putting himself in danger or leading them to move afterward--which she found admirable, and she wound up trying to do the same years later as she grew up. She took the loss of him as hard as the rest of her family, but she took up the mantle of watching after them without complaint, doing her best to provide for them all as she could on her soldier’s salary.

When it came to her mother, however, Emrys always had a somewhat distant relationship with her, who quietly disapproved of her learning the art of swordsmanship and later becoming a soldier. Leandra did eventually become more understanding of the notion when Emrys explained her need to want to be able to protect their family if Templars were ever after them. That never stopped the older woman from worrying constantly about her daughter’s safety though. When Carver died, their relationship became further strained, especially when Leandra impulsively blamed Emrys for the incident, but it was more or less amiable again by the time their family name was restored to nobility in Kirkwall. Leandra’s death still hit Emrys hard however, and although she supports mage freedom, she doesn’t care for the idea of blood magic--especially if it involves an unwilling subject--which is my personal headcanon as to why she’s so vehement about it in Inquisition.

With her siblings, she got along with both quite well. In fact, she was quite protective over them, and in her youth, it wasn’t uncommon for her to get into fights with anyone who thought they could harass the twins. It didn’t matter if Emrys was up against a bigger opponent or even outnumbered; she met them all head-on. Leandra berated her each and every time while Malcolm--and later Bethany--took to healing whatever wounds she sustained from the fights.

Emrys grew less impulsive as she aged, but of the two surviving Hawkes, Bethany is definitely the more level-headed sibling. Lol.

When Bethany inherited their father’s magical abilities, Emrys never really treated her any differently. She adored her little sister endlessly. If anything, she became more mindful of everyone else around her, especially when it came to the ever-watchful eyes of the Templars. As a soldier, she never hesitated to use the bulk of her body and armor to hide Bethany from view on the occasions her sister wanted to travel to the village, often to hear Leliana’s stories in the chantry. Then, she often escorted her sibling back home on her lunch break. Thankfully, people most just saw a protective sibling and never once thought she could be harboring an apostate in their midst.

Emrys was also close with her brother Carver, who followed after her in becoming a warrior, and she often helped him train. When he came of suitable age, he enlisted with the army as well, hoping to also help provide for their family. They had a healthy sibling rivalry, always constantly looking to test their skills against one another to improve upon their own. His loss not long after they escaped Lothering devastated her, and she blamed herself for his death for years afterward.

Personality-wise, she had more of a diplomatic leaning in my DA2 run of her, but she tends to be more playful around Bethany and their friends. It’s probably what drew Isabela to her, and Emrys was equally drawn in by the woman who was so bold and unapologetic in everything she did. The other woman encouraged her to be unafraid in indulging her more mischievous side--much to Bethany’s endless exasperation.

With the exception of Aveline--who she has a deep-seated rivalry with to say the least--Emrys tends to get along rather well with her companions. It admittedly took her longer to warm up to Fenris, especially when their first meeting almost turned disastrous after he called her sister ‘a viper’ and an ‘it.’ In the end, it took Bethany calming her down and Fenris apologizing before she allowed him to officially join her party. As a fellow warrior, she came to respect his skill greatly, and after a time, he was able to earn her loyalty, and she his in turn. While Emrys was closer to others within their close-knit group, she and Fenris developed an understanding of one another, so while they aren’t best friends, they do trust one another.

And if it wasn’t blatantly obvious in chapter 16 of OtSttCA, Bethany was part of Kirkwall’s Circle, and that’s how she ended up meeting and caring for the magelets Niamh meets. Thus, Bethany turning herself into the Templars after Emrys returns from the Deep Roads is probably one of the few times she came close to going against her little sister’s will.

That the then Knight-Captain Cullen and his Templar colleagues were able to escape Gamlen’s household unscathed at all was due in large part to Bethany outright begging her not to make matters worse. Emrys has always greatly respected Bethany’s autonomy and would never do anything to intentionally break that trust, but she couldn’t stop the sense of failure that washed over her following that moment, feeling as though she had lost another family member due to her own inability to protect them as she should.

In any case, Emrys has no love of Templars or what they represent to mages.

For a time, her friends were able to distract her from her abject misery, Isabela especially, who she entered into a casual relationship with. Emrys never pressed her for more--despite her own wishes to the contrary--knowing that the other woman would likely bolt were she to ask. To her chagrin, Isabela left anyway once she had the qunari artifact in hand, and while part of her wished to pursue the other woman, Emrys couldn’t bring herself to simply leave the city while her sister was still imprisoned in the Gallows.

Unfortunately, everything came to a head when the Arishok murdered the Viscount, and even when Isabela came back with the stolen Tome of Koslun, the qunari leader refused to leave without apprehending the thief in question. When Emrys argued against it, the Arishok offered her a compromise: a one-on-one duel to the death for Isabela.

She accepted the terms without question.

Infuriated, Isabela confronted Emrys immediately, asking her why she would place herself in such danger for her when the mistake was of her own doing.

“Because I don’t want to lose you again,” she said simply, stunning Isabela into silence, before striding off to meet the Arishok.

As expected, he was a warrior of great merit, and she was nearly done in by one of his blades as he impaled her. While the qunari thought his victory was all but assured with the wound he inflicted upon her, the sudden blood loss sent Emrys into the Reaver’s infamous dragon rage, enabling her to fight with such a frenzy that her opponent couldn’t hope to match. By the end of it, the massive qunari was cleaved in half with her greatsword. Unfortunately, her injury was so severe that had Anders, Merrill, and Bethany not been present to provide healing magic, she likely would’ve died.

The scar over her abdomen is the only evidence of her battle against the Arishok.

She was appointed as Champion of Kirkwall not long afterward, and she hoped to use her new position to help further the fight toward mage freedom, unaware that her activities were drawing attention to her sister still within the Circle... Then, things took a devastating turn with the destruction of Kirkwall’s chantry, thereby casting more fire into the resulting rebellion already raging throughout the city.

In the uneasy lull that followed with Meredith’s death, she asked her remaining companions and allies to scatter to the winds. With Isabela offering aid, Emrys then took Bethany along with the young charges under her care and went into hiding with them. She was able to stay with them for a time until she felt her presence was drawing far too much unwanted attention, especially with the Seekers now on her trail in addition to the Templars.

Emrys left her faithful mabari Rebel with them as a means of further protection before she actively drew attention to herself from Kirkwall’s remaining Templars, giving Bethany and the magelets the time needed to escape.

Despite her title, Emrys never returned to Kirkwall again.

She traveled with Isabela for some months, enjoying the soft, quiet moments with her as much as the more sensual ones, but when the Hands of the Divine began to close in on her location as well, she had no choice but to go into further seclusion again to protect her lover.

When she heard word that the Herald of Andraste was a mage who later became Inquisitor, she secretly sent word to a few of her companions, asking them to help get Bethany and the magelets back to Ferelden. There, she hoped they would be safe with the Inquisition, especially following the very public alliance offered to Redcliffe’s rebel mages.

What happens following that decision will be revealed in future chapters, but post-Trespasser, Emrys goes back to sailing the seas with Isabela, for like Niamh, she has lost enough, and there is nothing in all Thedas that could keep her from being with the one she loves most.

#Dragon Age: Inquisition #female hawke #Emrys Hawke #photo set #my DA2 daughter returns!#do you guys mind at all when i ramble on about characters like this? lol #chapter 17 of OtSttCA will be up by this weekend with any luck!

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jazzarray · 6 years

Text

Riju Production Post

So I’m mostly doing this for my own references (and as a reminder to take more pictures while working on costumes for proper progress posts/threads), but I just wanted to take the time and put together a post on my process and methods while working on my fave cosplay to date, Riju from Breath of the Wild!

This post will be really photo heavy. And text heavy. Just heavy overall, so watch out on mobile (sorry ahead of time) -

WARNING for hand closeup in the last image, scopophobia,

First things first, I gathered as many reference images as I possibly could. I went into the game itself and used nintendo’s handy dandy screen shot feature to take some pics. I also lurked around online in various boards and things to see if anyone else had taken some good detail shots of things I had missed. Here are some that i found the most useful:

Full body shots are always necessary. This one also gave me the bonus of being able to estimate how many coins to put on her skirt as well as a reference for the print inside of the skit

Much needed detail shots of the armor she’s wearing. I wanted to nail down the shape and dimension of everything as much as i could

And, since I love a good Prop, I had to make the Thunder Helm. The construction seemed maybe not simple but not ridiculous enough that I felt I could confidently reproduce it

Then I decided to do something I had sort of done before, but not to the extent that I did with Riju. I needed to draw everything out, write what materials would be used and where, how much I would need, the techniques I would use, etc. To save space, I’ll link to the post where I uploaded the four pages of breakdown I did for her --> here

I started on her probably later than I should have, around late Feb, March of this year (the con I debuted her at was in May). And then I messed around and didn’t get started on her as soon as I could have even after all my materials were bought. Speaking of which, let’s do a quick materials breakdown and where I got stuff

I bought about 3 yards of a slightly see-through, light weight black knit from Joanns. I was also able to find a heavier cotton blend printed fabric that, from the wrong side mimicked perfectly the pattern on Riju’s inner skirt.

I drafted my own patterns. The top was essentially a slightly bigger sports bra. The skirt I think I just kinda wrapped the fabric around myself and had my sister cut the angle I wanted. I used that piece to cut the inner lining of the skirt.

I hand painted the design on the top with 3d fabric paint. Some of the colors had to be mixed, particularly the gold. And i had to mix them multiple times bc I couldn’t finish it all at once lol. That was a pain.

JSYK, you can mix fabric paint with regular acrylic and it’ll still be just as flexible.

I stretched out the top on a cutting board I had and held it there with wonderclips lol. Bootleg, but it worked

This was also my first time working with bias tape! It’s kinda rough in some sections but it gave the top a really nice finish, i think. I also added some lil shoulder straps on with the rest of the tape I had, just for added support.

Jewelry, Belt, Armor, etc Everything not fabric was craft foam of varying thickness. Everything was either primed with glue/water or was coated with a few layers of plastidip. The detailing on the chest and belt pieces were done with 3D fabric paint

The only pieces not foam or fabric are air dry clay and hot glue casted gems. I made my own silicone mold with pure silicone + corn starch + a bit of baby oil. I think I used oven bake clay for the negatives and just filled those babies with hot glue. Sanded down the sides to get the defined lines I wanted and painted them with nail polish.

The air dry clay pieces coming off of the chest armor were strung together with more invisible thread and kinda shoddily held together with hot glue. But It Worked, Okay?

Everything that needed to be put on that wasn’t clothing (chest armor, jewelry pieces, belt, the petal sash looking thing) was strapped purely with velcro.

The shoes were just a thrifted pair of black heels and I painted the lines on with Angelus brand leather paint (this stuff is godly and a little goes a long way)

Here’s the base of the front of the helm unpainted.

I used 8mm eva sheet foam and 8mm dowels the from TNT Cosplay Supply as well as some basic 2-6mm foamie sheets from any store with a craft sections (I think i got mine from michaels? and some backup 2mm sheets from walmart)

The helm was a bit odd to pattern. I spent a lot of time doodling out shapes in my sketchbook. I made some v elementary templates out of poster board and had a Lot of re-working, especially with the slightly curved base of the front of the helm, the actual mask part. I knew it had to be two pieces because trying to make it one would make the curves at the top wrong potentially. It also gave me a good guideline for the midline of the helm itself for coloring.

Everything was held together with contact cement and shaped with a heat gun. I learned with this project just how pliable even 8mm thick craft foam can get when it’s hot. I reinforced some of the curves by scoring the curves and gluing the cut section back together.

I primed this all with glue/water mix and everything was spray painted that base gold.

I....completely freehanded the non gold sections. I painted the brown of the front of the helm first and then remembered the gold sections going down. I think I tried to sketch out the lines at first and then just went “fuck it” and free handed everything. Took a lot of careful brush strokes and correcting but I think it turned out well.

if you look closely at the pieces with the half question marks on them, you can see where I attempted to correct some lines with hand mixed acrylic and didn’t exactly get the color right lol whoops. It’s only noticable in closeups tho.

The front and back pieces of the helm were held together via velcro. I wanted them to be able to come apart, especially since I knew I was going to travel with it. The whole thing is rather Rigid so it needed some way to be more travel-with-able.

Close up of the Helm. It was extremely light weight, if only a lil awkward to tote around. I made it way too big so it couldn’t even be worn properly lol.

Weirdest snail I’ve ever seen

Base wig was Buttercup in Rust Red by Arda . I also got a bunch of their long wefts in the same color as well as their red jumbo braids. I used their tutorial on how to style a Rapunzel wig as the basis for how to do the braid.

I ruined my first pack of jumbo braid hair and had to order more last second. The wig was one of the last pieces to get done.

As in the rapunzel method, the braid is separate from the base wig and attached with hook/eye closures. It was still really dragging the back of the wig down, but I managed to braid in most of the base hair of the wig into the braid to hide the worst of it. It was so long, it reached all the way to my butt, i was so happy

The styling of the front of the wig was....mostly me winging it again. I knew theoretically what I needed to do -- tease the front bang a bit, add on wefts so that the hairline looked natural. But when I started doing so, I got impatient, like I normally do. To be fair the wig turned out way better than i thought it could given how much of a rush job the hair line and the bump + pinwheels were but hey

Everything got a generous helping of got 2 b glued spray

the side loops were completely separate pieces. I initially intended to sew them into the wig, but it was easier to put on and take off when they were separate

these were fabric hoops i stuffed lightly with pillow batting and, in another rush job, glued some wefts onto the loops. The gold rings were also just craft foam

Aside from the lipstick, I didn’t do the best with my makeup as I could have lol

I didn’t properly plan out what to color my eyebrows with. And covering them up was a serious rush job -- I didn’t practice before hand like I should have so I didn’t get them as smooth as I wanted

I also used....regular lipstick as the color, not even a drying matte, so anytime my hands went near my face (which was often bc of the helm, I had to whip out my mirror to do a smear check

The eye makeup was lipstick as well, but a matte one! It’s colourpop, I can’t remember which shade. The lipstick actually on my lips was a cheap drugstore brand I found at a beauty store.

First pair of ears were i think from Aradani?? I can’t 100% remember; there was a booth at Katsu this year....

Second pair, bc i lost the first pair somehow, was borrowed from a good friend lol

Now I know how to make my own latex ears so that’ll be what I do in the future

Contacts were from Alice and Rabbit’s Shop

I’ve got a decent amount of (what I would/could have done betters)

I need to figure out a better strapping method for the jewelry. The velcro I used was pretty thick and i found multiple scratches where they rubbed against me all day (a couple of em briefly scarred lol)

I wasn’t able to isolate a good enough image for the sand seal emblum that’s actually printed on her skirt. I might just hand paint it on if I can draw a decent enough template

The back piece of the helm, the band that connected to the circle, was...a pain. Since I was in the heat, it lost its shape pretty quickly when not attached to the front part and having to reshape it caused it to crack quite badly.

The aforementioned circular piece also wasn’t as securely connected as it could have been (i’m still trying to figure out what I could have done better. Maybe pins or something through the foam?) and I had to rush to the cosplay repair booth when I got to the con to make sure it didn’t completely rip off.

I found two pairs of black heels and neither of them fit well enough to walk in all day! so I would up taking a bunch of photos in the wrong shoes bc I had switched them out and forgotten to put the actual shoes back on lol.

Practice the makeup!! Practice, practice practice. Especially eyebrow blocking bc mine are pretty thick and bushy and it Did Not work as well the first time lol.

And last but most importantly: GIVE YOURSELF ENOUGH DANG TIME TO NOT RUSH

i was so hesitant to cut into anything, especially the foam, that i wound up working on things down to the wire, aka friday night before I was set to wear Riju.

Take time,especially when doing new things you’ve never done before

don’t be afraid to think outside the box and even reach out to someone, even if they’re a non-cosplayer, for help and ideas because they will probably save your ass (thanks dad)

So here is my little love letter to my Riju cosplay. It’s...admittedly in shambles kind of now. Half of my armor pieces had some bumps or breaks that are repairable but not a priority. The wig is a mess because the back kept tangling on my armor pieces. The band/back of the Helm is also a wreck, cracked to hell and back.

But!! I want better pictures of her, so I want to try and fix her up so I can at least do a decent photoshoot somewhere. I also wanna make a patricia plush! Maybe enter her into a contest??

Only time, patience, and a Lotta Money will tell lol

#jazz says shit #jazz takes pics #cosplay ramblings

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luthienliveblogslately-blog · 6 years

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Milestone write-up!

Since the story seems to be closing one story-arc and moving on to another, I feel this is a good place to take stock, summarize what we know and make some more or less educated guesses at what might happen in future. It got a bit away from me (”a bit” lol), so here’s a read more for your convenience.

Players on the board

Last we left off, shit had decidedly hit the fan. We got painful confirmation that the elves successfully assassinated King Harrow, but they in turn had a painful price to pay. From what we can tell, Runaan is the only survivor, and he has been captured by Soren and Claudia. Claudia thinks he might come in “useful”, whatever that may mean. Might be they’ll interrogate him for information about Xadia, might be that Claudia has some more nefarious, magical things planned. She might ask him about Rayla and the egg, but it’s not like he can tell her anything that she doesn’t already know, aka Rayla and the boys have the egg and they plan to return it and use it to restore peace. Maybe, if they keep talking for long enough, he might actually get her to see that the egg really is just a yet to hatch baby dragon and therefore a sentient being in need of protection, and not just a powerful magical weapon to be used by whoever sees fit. If Runaan manages to escape or communicate with other elves, our heroes will have some real problems. He clearly sees Rayla as a traitor and seeks to punish her for the perceived crimes she committed, and there’s still that pesky magical bounty on Ezrans’s head…

It’s hard to say what Claudia and Soren will do next. I think it depends very much on if Viren is sticking around the castle or not, and what his plans are. As to what his plans might be… god knows. Just how much does he want the egg back? Is he willing to go after it himself, or will he maybe send Soren? How much does Soren know about all this anyway? Five bucks says he had no idea about anything tbh. You know what still hasn’t been opened yet btw? The fucking letter. It’s still in Viren’s study. If it really has a contingency plan like “Callum becomes prince regent until Ezran is old enough to rule” I get the feeling Viren might pull some GoT-style shenanigans and try to put himself on the throne. At this point there isn’t really anything I wouldn’t put past him. In any case though the kingdom might be thrown into serious chaos for a while. After all: the King is Dead, long live the…. wait, who now? The crown prince is missing? The step-prince is missing, too? Well, guess it’s time for some good old-fashioned power grabbing!

And then there’s our three four protagonists. We don’t know where the kingdom of Katolis is exactly, but in any case they have a long journey ahead. They will have to stick to the woods for most of it and avoid towns I think. Rayla can’t be seen by humans, the egg can’t be seen either, and Viren might try and put a bounty on all of them anyway, so the boys might not be save either. I trust Rayla will be able to get the foods from the woods though, so that should be alright. And then eventually they’ll reach the Breach and have to make their away across it and around however many standing armies manning the border from both sides. Yikes. Though we have no idea how far they’ll go in three remaining episodes. There are after all at least 5 more potential seasons in store for us, so there’s a good chance they won’t even remotely come close to the Breach in this one. What I’m really worried about is Rayla keeping the truth about Harrow from the boys. While it breaks my heart just thinking about them having to mourn their dad, I’m worried about Callum lashing out at Rayla in his grief. We already had a scene when he found out about the assassination plot and subsequently flipped out at Ez out of fear, and Ez hadn’t even really done anything. How much worse will that reaction be if she’s been lying to them for several days, even if it was just to spare them the pain? It might damage his trust in her, Callum might even try and make them split up and continue without her. Sounds like a really bad idea, but people do stupid things when they’re angry and sad.

Other unresolved plot points

WHAT DOES THE FUCKING LETTER SAY

What’s up with the Mirror? For that matter, why is the mirror fishy enough to be covered up but not fishy enough to be hidden in the Lair of Dead Things?

What’s with the picture Harrow looked at last time we saw him alive? It’s gotta be something, right? Why would they make the camera zoom in on it lying face down on the bed otherwise? Just have Harrow put it away and then forget it exists, don’t give it an extra shot!

Pip! Is he still alive? D:

Callum still has the Storm Stone, but he might have to get his hands on a book or find himself a teacher to learn some new spells probably?

WHAT DO THE BLACK EYES DO? DO THEY EVEN DO ANYTHING OR ARE THEY JUST FOR CREEPY EFFECT?

Viren’s staff! Just cool historical artifact or actually relevant to the plot?

Shameless Tin-hatting aka Foreshadowing Fucking Everywhere aka Miscellaneous Shit I Noticed While re-watching ep 1-3

Callum’s drawing of a Dragon roasting a Marshmallow Monster -> this show’s version of the Cookie Cat jingle? Possibly depicting Viren’s inevitable demise?

Not foreshadowing, but I realized when the Narrator says “on the eve of last Winter’s Turn” in the opening what is meant with “last” is just most recent, as in “last month” or “last Christmas”. So it probably was some solstice type date after all. Makes sense with it now being spring.

People keep pointing out how shit Bait is at hiding. I’m afraid at some point they’ll have to hide from something REALLY BAD and Bait will get them found. :/ Really, Bait being called Bait just seems super unfortunate in general.

You know how Rayla says “My Heart for Xadia” during the ritual? Yeah, I’m getting the feeling Rayla will be instrumental in getting Ezran out of the magical contract, possibly in a super heroic way by just doing what her heart tells her to and saving the day, or possibly just… by dying in his stead. Oh god I feel like I jinxed her. :(

You know how Callum was like “You’re so lucky, you get to learn magic!” and Claudia was like “You get to learn sword fighting!” and then Callum was like “I’d switch places in a second!”? Well, he’s doing magic now, so…. the little disaster bi that is myself is praying for Claudia in armor with a big-ass sword being a BAMF. ´

Anybody else who really wants to know what is under that OTHER, BIGGER tarp in the Lair of Dead Things? Because I really wanna know. I bet Ezran knows already.

Harrow said about the letter that “[Callum will] understand in time.” What makes me think there’s more in there than just his last will, possibly it’s also his last confession. What terrible shit has he done over the years of his reign, how much of it did Viren have his fingers in and how much of it can Viren use against him post-mortem? And how will the boys react when they get confronted with their dad’s uglier side, possibly via what the elves or even some direct victims have to say about him?

I’d really like to have a look at that book Callum is carrying everywhere. I figure it’s his sketch book and not relevant to anything, but it might still be fun to get to see some pages anyway.

Stuff that I got spoilered on because there’s too many tags to block :(

I saw some pics of the Dragon Prince after hatching! D: I’m sorry, it feels like I robbed myself of an awesome surprise and you of a genuine reaction. :( I didn’t look very closely, I just saw that he was adorable and had roughly the same color scheme as his dad. Which leads me to some more tin hatting: What with Thunder being called that and also breathing lightning, I’d like to propose that the Storm Stone still has a big role to play after all, other than just providing Callum with a magical source he can carry around.

I saw General Amaya of the Standing Battalion being name dropped in a text post. I scrolled too fast to see any context, but considering who she is I guess we’ll get her as an upcoming character in some capacity.

I know that the elf making the MAGIC TREES amulets gets another ending slide at some point, and that people are theorizing he and Runaan are a Thing. I’m not a super big fan of Runaan at this moment in time so I couldn’t give less of a shit about his love life tbh, and as much as I like to ship things I usually need a bit more than literally two pictures to get me going, so. I dunno, don’t expect much from me on that front until more material comes out in later seasons I guess. Like… if there isn’t enough for people to make emotional gif sets out of, can you even really call it a ship?

Netflix tried to push Chapter 4 on me when I went to re-watch the others. I got it shut down quickly enough, but I still saw the title. I think it was… Bloodthirsty? Bloodlust? Either way I think either Runaan is gonna have a REALLY bad time very soonish or our protagonists will have to run REALLY fast from people trying to catch them. Maybe both.

#the dragon prince #tdp liveblog #drapri liveblog #rambling review

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kittypatra-zosan · 7 years

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If you like our work, please consider supporting @cyriusli on ko-fi and myself, @mossybrows-draws on patreon!

Character: Sora Vinsmoke (Sola Vinsmoke) Role: Bastet!Sora / Sekhmet!Sola Pet-Name: Sanji-Mama

Mossy: I was the one who wanted Sola in the fic, honestly. If we were going to have Sanji be the son of Bastet, it had to be Sora/Sola. Even if Cyriusli had said no, I would’ve insisted, I swear I wanted it to be Sola so badly. She seriously doesn’t get enough screen or panel-time. Most of our concept development happened because of the problem we encountered with Bastet/Sekhmet cat-god Sora. I like to headcanon that Sanji takes after his mama, so I used that idea in creating a little more of Sora’s design.

Cyriusli: I admit, I was a little skeptical at first, but she grew on me and I was able to find a way to incorporate her into the plot of the story. Both parent gods make appearances, but this is more about Sanji and Zoro so their roles are minor in the main story.

Mossy: Same reason I don’t really have a lot of development sketches for her. I got distracted and drew in a little baby Sanji just for interaction concept reasons...and then ended up making Zoro and Sanji baby chibis. But more on that later. XD

Cyriusli: The chibis are freaking adorable. You keep getting sidetracked and making new things and I am just sitting here like… you have 5 other things to finish first! What are you doing?!

Mossy: I’m sorry! But his wittle buttt butt wa so nyaa nyaa and I just HAD to! Besides, I’d already drawn the child!versions of them both anyway! So I was like ‘why not baby versions’!?? Ayway. I did have a little more trouble with Sola/Sora. I was like Bastet? Sekhmet? Bastet? Sekhmet? Like we mentioned before, we decided to make 2 different versions of Sola/Sora because of the differences between Egyptian North and South Kingdom cultures.

Cyriusli: Incorporating all the different points in the Egyptian lore is a little hard to juggle, but I think we are handling it fairly well at this point. And besides, we are completely inserting two beings that never even existed, combining Bastet and Sekhmet into one momma god probably isn’t the worst thing we could be doing.

Mossy: True, but I am having a little more trouble with her armor than I expected. Have one design up now ( could be another design up by the time I post this text on my character sheet for her.)

Cyriusli: Yeah and then I get to write her when we pretty much know nothing about how her character operated. I think our little twist of her “ignoring” Sanji a good portion of the time is good though because that plays into the part of Sanji missing her so much.

Mossy: I was thinking about the story Oda had about the Germa 66, where the hero, Sora, who has a telltale similar name to Sora/Sola, Sanji’s mom and how this hero defied the Germa 66 and saved North Blue. With Sekhmet being the goddess of war, I thought it was fitting she was Sanji’s mom. She could be waging war to fight for her babies back from Jaji of another culture or something, being an Egyptian god, maybe fight with the Roman or Greek god she had an affair with? LOL. Not that I’m being serious.

Cyriusli: Yeah, I don’t think that would really work and it would get too complicated. I do however see Sola fighting a lot of wars. Like maybe this is a time where Old Kingdom is crumbling and Unification is on the horizon. Sanji is located in the deep southern part of the Nile but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of fighting. There has to be… Zoro’s place at the scales tells us there is.

Mossy: Ahh, I love having Sola/Sora get to be here and be an active character! The possibilities are endless! I do love the lion look she ended up with being a fire-illusion instead of an actual lion face.

Cyriusli: Yeah! That’s pretty cool!

Mossy: It also helped with Nebit’s design, because...I mean, I’m not against anyone who’s into it, but I can’t exactly fall for anyone who has a lion for a face and a human body. Not into that. So I thought if Nebit was going to ‘take after Sola’ because of Sanji, then having her be a nekomimi would be ideal.

Cyriusli: I know that was my plan for Nebit all along. We cover her background a bit more in her sketch, but my plan for her was to look like Sanji and his mama, different than the rest of the attendants and guards that live in the palace and temple.

Mossy: As for Mama Sola/Sora (I still dunno which one to call her), I finally got my act together after moving houses and countries again and finished her design up. Though I did have a bit of trouble with the colors. Since Sanji’s got a lot of orange to his character (fire and all), I thought it was fitting to keep it in the golds and yellows. Though I did accidentally color part of her armor green at some point. The designs of her armor made me rethink the designs of her Bastet!form dress.

Cyriusli: I think her Bastet dress looks fine and I think her armor does as well. I really love the helm you made for her and her tail is pretty awesome as well, even if that isn’t exactly armor. I’m glad we got the color thing figured out though, you sent me those pics and my instant reaction was, gods, I know we are moss, but please not that. Slight color change made all the difference for badass warrior momma.

Mossy: Haha! I can’t wait to have her in the Chopper’s Comic Corner! I have a lot of Monster Hunter history under my belt (not that I was a good player, but I did manage to collect a lot of armor, so I did have to kill a lot of monsters). It’s mostly that stuff that helped me design her armor.

Cyriusli: This whole process is cool for me because I may think up armor, but I never get to see how it looks outside my head, so to see Mossy bring this stuff to life is just such a great thing to me. She makes it seem so simple, despite the hours we spend in skype screaming at one another over things lol

Mossy: Ahh yes, the screaming. There be plenty screaming. I was screaming about using turtle shells as armor for Sola’s/Sora’s skirt because well...shit forgot my reasons. But yeah, I was screaming about that but then I realized Cyriusli was offline and I couldn’t call her about it and then I was sad.

Cyriusli: Oh no! I’m sorry. You didn’t tell me about that.

Mossy: LOL yeah I forgot. But I should ask now; did they have turtles in the nile? I mean...Sekhmet!Sola kinda has a turtle shell skirt.

Cyriusli: Yeah, they had turtles. The Nile used to be a huge ecosystem, not that it isn’t now, but it used to be bigger, I guess. So there were all sorts of animals that are typical of a water environment, including ibis, egret and the DEATH PELICANS.

Mossy: Oh thank god...they’re very orange though. Is that kinda weird? Ah. I’ll change it to the shell color. XDD I think this is about it for Sora/Sola-sama. Man I love her! I wish she showed up more in the manga, like many other women, we clearly don’t get enough of what kind of person she is other than the fact that she’s a good mother.

Please look forward to her appearance in Chopper’s Comic Corner, coming soon!

#sola #sora #vinsmoke sola #sola vinsmoke #sora vinsmoke #zosan egyptian au #zosan #kittypatra zosan #kittypatra sanji #zosan kittypatra au #zosan kittypatra #double moss combo #cyriusli #mossybrows #mossybrows-draws

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rockmiyabideusexmachina · 7 years

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2017 Megaman Valentine’s Day Contest: Talent Category Winners and Art (*Image Overload!*)

Sorry for the delay on this again, but you guys definitely made judging this a challenge, with all the awesome entries! And my internet connection cut out last night, so I had a little retyping to do today. ^^;

There were so many Talent submissions, 25, that it alone was pretty much bigger than any amount of total entries I’ve ever received for a whole year’s contest! Thanks for overwhelming me!! ;D

For this category, entitled “Step into this Capsule X...And Receive This Fashionable Formalwear!”, entrants were required to draw at least one couple in their best formal attire, enjoying time together for an anniversary/party/date.

So both for simplicity, and the fact that it wouldn’t be fair or even remotely easy to rank each one, I will just be listing the Top 3 prize winning entries, and follow that with the remaining entries in alphabetical order. Even if you did not place, I am humbled and wowed by the effort you all put into your artwork. Believe me, I enjoyed them all, and so many were deserving of placing! But unfortunately, even with all I’m giving away this year, I can’t give you all something in return, other than my sincere appreciation. And I’m sure you all will love them, too!

This year, judging was done by @annamariacoppi and myself. With her experience as an illustrator/package designer, AnnaMaria brings some different insight from my own, as I always try to have some added perspective, besides just mine. Commentary from at least one of us on your art will also be seen below.

Each artist’s name will link to a (hopefully) larger version I’ve uploaded, that will work until you guys upload your art on your own pages, followed by their tumblr handle or deviantArt page, if applicable. If a link is broken or I screwed up somewhere, let me know. This was a lot to verify!

Without further ado, here are your winners (who I will contact soon) and the rest of spectacular, snazzily-dressed contest entries:

1.) Kaitlin.EXE (@kaitlinexe) - Zero x Iris, X x Alia, Axl x Pallette:

AnnaMaria said: Love all the outfits you designed! So much detail went into this! I like how "classic" looking everyone is dressed. It's so different compared to the other entries. Even their hair styles look great. I like how their hair is more shiny than their clothes. You can tell it's a different material quality. Would have liked to see a proper background. Right now I can't really tell where they are.

Miyabi said: In many ways, this piece feels like an X meets Disney sort-of-tale, with the elegant Victorian-era fashion flair. Both the overall intricacies of their clothing, like Zero’s braided booblight tassels (I don’t care if you disagree, that’s what they are!! LOL), to their glammed-up hair, I felt your piece overall had the strongest detail and creativity concerning the theme, which involved formalwear and the celebration of love. And still a touch of humor involved, with Pallette’s clumsiness, most likely as she’s getting used to dancing in heels.

2.) Tabby (@digitallyfanged) - Maverick Party Limo:

AnnaMaria said: I like the lighting you have going on. Feels very glowy, and I can tell it's in the evening. Their outfits are nice. Very elegant looking! I like the movement in the champagne glass in the back a lot! Helps make the scene feel alive. I would have liked to see more detail in the clothing. Since this is a very shadow heavy scene, textures should show up more. That being said, the pattern texture on Sigma's outfit is really nice looking. The other outfits look a bit plain in comparison. Would have loved to see that feather boa fleshed out more. A softer edge around it will help make it look "fluffier". Some more color would help. It's very heavy in the purple and black as it is.

Miyabi said: Those Maverick bosses always have to glow in the dark, don’t they? The fancy digital limo ceiling is fitting for evil robots, while the deep pinks and purples fit the common color theme that links most of them together, besides their penchant for inflicting pain on those Maverick Hunters. The gentlemen look dapper, although paperboy Lumine seems just as uncomfortable in his clothing as he is partying with the squad. I liked how you still kept Ferham and Berkana’s armor motif tied into their dresses. As funny as the bonus Vile image is, I have to imagine he’d rather be popping out the sunroof, with shoulder cannon ready, in his fancy new stretch ride armor! ;p

3.) Iris-Sempi (@iris-sempi) - Zero x Iris, X x Layer, Axl x Marino:

AnnaMaria said: I really like how this looks it could be strait out of an animation scene. It's got all the right framing for it! The emotion with the colors are really nice. The outfits are nicely done, and I like the perspective in Iris dress. It feel like it's moving! I can clearly tell what's going on, and the story is very strait forward. I think if there was a spotlight above Zero and Iris, that would help put the focus even more on them. I would also move them over a tad more to the left. It would make for a even better composition.

Miyabi said: With all the warm colors towards the upper half of this pic, my eye was definitely drawn to the cooler hues of Iris’ dress. Her shocked look, along with the way it flows, definitely gives me the feeling that Zero has some pretty outstanding SA-class Foxtrot Paso Doble skills. I love the looks of excitement and pride on the faces of the other couples, as the lovebirds hit center stage. Truly, a wonderful scene!

And to keep this from extending too long on your dash, the remaining 22 entries for this category are after the cut...

Continuing with the rest of these fantastic pieces, alphabetically by alias:

- Archer-Poyochu (@archer-poyochu) - Subaru x Misora:

Miyabi said: While the bright city lights would probably cancel out viewing of the beautiful shooting stars in the sky, it looks like Subaru is showing Misora the more earthly light show on that romantic balcony overlook. Nice touch with her clef hair clip.

- Artistic Sunny (Artistic Sunny) - Enzan x Meiru:

Miyabi said: Cute details on Meiru’s dress, tying in the floral hair clip and pearls with it. Going with the nighttime scene, obviously it should be darker, but the heavier shading on Enzan makes it a little harder to see the details in his outfit. But with arms intertwined, it’s obvious they are both enjoying the night out on the town.

- Bassrocks (@bassrocks) - Prom Dance:

AnnaMaria said: Really cute! I like the feel of this one! Color choices are nice. The pinks and purples feel very "Valentines". The punch bowl and cup stack are a nice touch. I like the effort that was put into the background, but it could use some perspective work. Anatomy is bit off in some places, but if you work on the perspective a bit, that would help correct it a bit. Would have liked to see more detail in their outfits. I like the accessories you added, but the girl's dresses seem a bit plain. Some clothing construction seams could help.

- Borockman (@borockman) - Zero x Iris (w/ Sigma x Nana):

Miyabi said: What’s this? Why aren’t Sigma and Nana the stars of this red carpet gala?! It’s probably because of that Willy Wonka outfit. Didn’t rate high with the fashion police. Love trying to make out faces in the crowd, and how they are all enjoying their eyecandy. Both couples look quite elegant!

- Chocoorchid (@chocoorchid) - Zero x Layer:

Miyabi said: A cute closeup, and with the border design, almost reminiscent of a camera’s frame. Pinstripes are a sharp look for Zero, and in fact, I think you’re the only one to try that design in this contest. Just would have liked to see a little more of them in the image!

- CptRedder (cptredder) - Aeolus, Thetis, Atlas and Siarnaq:

Miyabi said: Aeolus isn’t sure if he needs to blow out Atlas’ flame with that rose offering! At the very least, he’s getting a little hot under the collar. I really like the sketchy, splotchy white border around them, it’s a different look. And keeping the pink hues to the shading bounces off the background pretty good.

Creator of Worlds (@thecreatorofworlds) - Anniversary Dance, Complete With Rock and Roll Clothing Changing Capsule .gifs, and Instagram party post:

AnnaMaria said: I appreciate the fake Instagram comments! They were fantastic! I like how the outfits feel, like I could actually go out and sew these myself if I wanted. Shows you know how clothing construction works. The outfit designs are very nice. Not too upper classy, but a good fit for them. The slight glow in the eyes is a nice touch. Would have loved to see a proper background. Right now the characters feel a bit disconnected from the background you have right now. Either the character tones/color should be a bit darker, or the background a bit lighter, so they feel more apart of that world.

Miyabi said: I think it’s awesome that you took the time to create the animated .gifs that had both Rock and Roll changing in the capsule, perfectly echoing the title of this category! Creatively, one of my faves, due to all the little extras that come with your submission. Clean lines and colors, where simple is better and still stands strong. Skull Man is adorable in his bowtie!

- Cuddlesnowy (@cuddlesnowy) - X x Zero:

Miyabi said: Blushin’ buds captured in a moment frozen in time. Cute innocent pic, and the photo frame helps show it was a special pic for both of them. Or that there’s still a Sears portrait studio near Maverick Hunter HQ...LOL

- DarlinHope (@darlinhope) - X x Merti:

Miyabi said: I really dig your painterly style, as it creates a really unique look that stands out. The starry sky seen through the large window behind them is gorgeous! The grey vest/pants combo is a nice muted contrast on the dapper X, compared to the bright yellows and gold of Merti.

- DreamingandGaming (@dreamingandgaming) - Ice Man x Roll, Kalinka x Rock, + Blues:

AnnaMaria said: Very cute. I like how the outfits are simplified to match the very cartoony style. Would have liked to see some center pieces on the tables, or other decorations to make it feel more like a party.

Miyabi said: Blues is too cool for your dances! I really thought Roll’s heart-shaped dress and all of Kalinka’s frills were unique touches to their dresses. Kalinka’s reminds me of a delicious multi-tier cake with black frosting trim, actually. LOL The Valentine’s fireworks cap off a fun, adorable scene.

- Gingler (gingler) - Swanky Couple Anniversary Dinner Party:

AnnaMaria said: I like how many characters are in this piece. You've managed to make it look not too cluttered, and I can easily tell what's going on. Each table and dancing couple is telling a different story, and I love that! Some constructive criticism would be to add some proper lighting. There's a light coming from above, yet there aren't any shadows. It makes it feel a little off. However, this is great example of storytelling!

Miyabi said: I really hope a bolo tie impresses Akane...a ninja wearing a western tie, what is this?! ;p I love the doctors just soaking in the evening while their humanized robo-children all intermingle. Enjoy having a few waiters and musical entertainment in the scene, too. You have a unique take on all the RMs, yet they are all pretty recognizable. Also, pimp Wily is pimpin’!

- IrisClou (@iris-clou) - Storm Eagle x Axl:

Miyabi said: Eagle looks so casual suave with his open-buttoned shirt and martini. Both he and Axl can leave the penguin suits for...well, Chill Penguin! Your rainbow hues for the warm background and cool couch are an awesome looking contrast. The colors on this are pretty unique.

- Jewel Maiden (@jewelmaiden) - Dynamo x Layer (w/Zero x Iris):

Miyabi said: Dat Iris grin! Seems like she had a plan to keep Layer away from Zero. LOL The floral lace pattern of Layer’s dress is gorgeous, and ties in to the mechanical forest background. Dynamo’s space-y tie is pretty neat, too!

- LightLabs (@lightlabs) - Sigma x Sigma’s Reflection (w/Zero x Iris):

AnnaMaria said: Very funny, but still serious... Nice! This has a nice feel to it. I like your choice of colors a lot. The background looks nice. Would have loved to see more detail in the outfits. I can see a lot in the mirror, but a good chunk is hiding behind the rose.

Miyabi said: I like the dimly lit restaurant scene, and the little details like the heart-shaped chair and Green Biker Dude host. Hilarious giving Sigma those narcissistic qualities, loving himself more than anything else in the world.

- Metakit (@metakit) - Freeze Man x Star Man:

Miyabi said: The background pattern here is pretty unique, and I like how you were able to tie their main colors into it, while still not blending in too much that it takes away from the duo. Freeze in particular gives me a James Bond character vibe in his fancy getup. LOL

- Myan - Gemini Man x Gemini (Wo?)Man:

Miyabi said: Love the movement of Gemini Man taking a dip back! The bottom trim of his shirt coming out also sort of ties into looking like his crystal headpiece, too! Never one to shy from the spotlight, his twin proves that a Gemini can look good in a dress as well.

- Nat-Grim (Nat-grim) - Atlas x Aeolus:

Miyabi said: Rolling out the red carpet, Atlas rocks the V-Day red pantsuit well, while I like the extended tail on Aeolus’ suit, along with his heart-shaped tie. Definitely feels like a gala event photo op!

- Paranoid King Cepheus (@paranoidkingcepheus) - The largest entry ever known to mankind that I can’t even begin to thumbnail on tumblr...so I’ll just crop out this image of Akane dancing with Shadowman.EXE while Top Man spins to the beat:

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4.

Miyabi said: You are insane for once again adding in all the characters that you have! And I love the massive effort! An adorable tale of Jack getting to the dance and so many hijinks and easter eggs in-between, with a very cute ending.

- Prosaic Wonder (@vava-fett) - Anniversary Dance:

AnnaMaria said: I really like all the characters packed into here! Each one is telling a different story, and a lot of them are actually pretty funny. I especially love the random leg with the high heel sticking out. I also appreciate you trying to match the original art style somewhat. The cell shading is really nice here! Ok, I'm gonna get super picky here. If those are Roll's hands holding up the cellphone taking a picture... They look more like adult hands. Child hands should be a bit more dainty and rounder looking. The style of her nail polish is also a bit "adult/older looking", even a bit out of fashion in style. I would have expected her to wear some glitter polish, perhaps even some fake rhinestones. Yes, this is silly comment, but since this category is focusing on the attires, I felt I had to address it. That being said, I really wish I could see more of their outfits. You did a great job designing so many of them, but all we really see are their heads a bit of their torso.

Miyabi said: I don’t know which I’ll be able get out of my head first: Gemini Man in a feather boa and thong or Top Man’s sexy stocking leg... A lot of fun and amusing interactions between the characters/couples here; I agree that it’s a little unfortunate for most that we can only see their heads, but there is so much to enjoy about your style and all that’s going on in the scene! It’d work as an awesome cover image, for sure!

Soulivium (@su5anlee) - Dark Kirisaki x Iris.EXE:

AnnaMaria said: I really like the costume design. It's very formal and modern looking! I especially like the lace around the dress, and how they are both wearing purple and red to match each other. Would have loved to see a background.

Miyabi said: Very fancy attire on both. I love the dueling abstract lacy sides to both Iris’ dress and necklace. It’s really gorgeous. The heart-shaped Killer Eye with scythes on top of Kirisaki’s top hat is fun and unique for a character like him to wear.

- Wimzik (@wimzik) - Netto x Food (and also Meiru + Jasmine) + Laika x Pride:

Miyabi said: Typical oblivious Netto, stuffing his face rather than mingling with the ladies! Great job telling a story, showing Meiru’s jealousy over Jasmine’s flirtation, and Laika’s nerves keeping him from leaving Netto’s side. The girls’ dresses are all unique and tailored to their personalities, and I’m amused that Netto felt like a striped tie would double as a fancy headband to make him feel dressed up!

- Wintesm (@wintesm) - Prom Photo Memories Bulletin Board:

Miyabi said: I love the continuity from last year’s prom entry continuing here, with a photo memory board. And there are still Search Snakes running amok! A lot of cute scenes, although I think I lean heavily towards the 3 on the far right as my favorite ones.

Thanks to all once again! Be proud of what you submitted!

Still working on typing the Humor Category results. They are coming soon, too! *faints from organizing this*

#Rockman #Megaman #Rock Miyabi's 2017 Valentine's Day Contest #Too many tags to list #Thank you!#Other people's art

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