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kuiperblog · 1 year

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What makes movie action “good?”

There’s a John Wick movie in theaters. There seems to be pretty uniform agreement that John Wick movies have great action, and simultaneously, there seems to be a lot of general “Marvel fatigue,” some of which is specifically about the MCU, but also some of which is about “action blockbusters” that seem to put a lot of focus on action and spectacle that a lot of people seem to be growing increasingly disenchanted with. (See, for example: Tomorrow War (2021) starring Chris Pratt, Extraction (2020) starring Chris Hemsworth, and to round out the Chris roster we also have Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) with Chris Pine.)

Most of the discussion tends to focus on effects, and how making everything in a computer feels soulless while practical effects like the ones in John Wick and Everything Everywhere All At Once are superior, and there’s a certain degree to which blockbuster CG does look worse due to everything being computer generated. But I think a much bigger and more deep-seated problem is that blockbuster action is poorly structured.

There are a lot of great practical scenes in John Wick with choreography that is great not just in execution, but in concept: if you recreated them with computer animation, or hand-drawn animation, many of them would be just as fun. You could look at a storyboard with a director’s poorly-drawn pencil sketches and you’d still be able to follow the logic and understand what the scene’s impact is supposed to be. You can tell this, because people can describe these scenes, and regularly do exactly that, because they’re memorable. It’s what the legend of John Wick is all about. (And it’s not just the “top 10 most creative John Wick kills” listicles that remind us of that fact.)

The thing is, John Wick doesn’t rely on the unique outlandish props for memorable kills. Most of John Wick’s kills boil down to “point gun, pull trigger.” And yet despite that most of his kills are with bullets, so many of them feel unique. Each scene feels like it has a tempo to it, a sense of flow, a chain of cause and effect. “That guy is hiding behind a pillar, but his toe is sticking out. So I’ll shoot him in the toe, causing him to bend over in pain, exposing the rest of his body so I can shoot center of mass.” There’s always the moment when John Wick runs empty and has to reload before delivering the killshot.

There’s a storytelling principle that’s often applied to plot structure. This was famously described by Trey Parker to a bunch of NYU students on MTVU's "Stand In." Trey Parker describes the writers room as containing a massive white board, split into 3 acts, where they write down ideas scenes and rearrange them. Each scene has to be entertaining by itself, but they also need to be connected by a coherent narrative through-line.

"You don't want just one scene where, 'well, what was the point of that?' Take the beats of your outline, and if the words 'and then' belong between those beats, you've got something pretty boring. What should happen between every beat that you've written down is either the word 'therefore,' or 'but.'”

A happens, therefore B happens. Or, B doesn't happen, but C happens, therefore D happens. Repeat. You can use this to structure the plot for a 25-minute TV episode, or a 120-minute movie, or a 2-minute action scene. Follow it, beat by beat, and see if one leads to the next:

One of the evil henchmen comes swinging at our hero with a wooden chair raised over his head, but the hero dodges and the wooden chair smashes against the floor, shattering. Therefore, the ground is now covered with the broken remains of a wooden chair, so the mook picks up one of the long pieces of wood that served as a chair leg and begins swinging at the hero again. But the hero successfully dodges and the wooden club breaks and splinters in a way that causes it to become, therefore the mook starts trying to use the splintered end to stab the hero...

I’m not saying this is an amazing action scene, but it’s a competent one: each beat flows into the next. The chair becomes a chair leg, then the chair leg becomes a shiv. Each time the henchman comes rushing at the hero, he’s doing it with a different weapon. The scene has a logic to it: if you rearranged the shots, the scene wouldn’t make sense. You can’t start with a splintered piece of wood and then end on an intact chair.

So many mediocre action movies fail to deliver it. The bad guy punches the hero. And then he punches the hero again. And then he tries to kick the hero. And then he punches in a different, cooler way. There’s no real sense in which each beat is a consequence of what followed it: if you cut the scene up and rearranged the shots, a lot of people might not even notice. (And in fact that sort of thing happens all the time in the editing bay.)

Tony Zhou self-deprecatingly describes this problem when critiquing one of his own videos, saying “This is a list you could put in any order. That’s why it’s so boring.”

For examples of action cinema where every beat feels like a consequence of what preceded it, watch any classic Jackie Chan movie (the ones that came out of Hong Kong, not Hollywood). Tony Zhou describes it like this:

“So how does Jackie create action that is also funny? First off, he gives himself a disadvantage. No matter what film, Jackie always starts beneath his opponents. He has no shoes. He’s handcuffed. He has a bomb in his mouth.“

“From this point, he has to fight his way back to the top. Each action creates a logical reaction. And by following the logic, we get a joke.” (Jackie is facing an assailant with a gun; Jackie has a gun, but it’s empty. Therefore, Jackie fakes surrender, handing his empty gun to the assailant. Therefore, the assailant is now holding an unloaded gun in his left hand. The assailant now thinks he has control of the situation, but reaching for the unloaded gun distracted him the fact that Jackie was entering a fighting stance and getting ready to kick: therefore, when Jackie kicks, he succeeds in knocking the loaded gun out of the assailant’s right hand. Therefore, the assailant tries to fire at Jackie using the gun in his left hand -- which is empty, and he realizes it in a moment of surprise which Jackie seizes on by punching the assailant in the face.)

This is the joy of watching Jackie Chan films: much like the example of a chair (which morphs into a chair leg, which morphs into a shiv), a prop in a Jackie Chan movie is rarely just one thing. A ladder isn’t just a ladder; it’s a prop. And it’s several different kinds of props. Fighting with a ladder like this:

...is subtly different than fighting with a ladder after this happens:

And if you flip it over a guy’s head, it suddenly becomes a cage:

...trapping a guy just long enough for him to look at you in surprise right before your fist intersects with his face.

It’s great for action comedy, but it’s also great for straight action: sometimes, the “punchline” is someone getting defeated in a surprising way. John Wick is one of the few big franchises of recent years to reliably do this sort of thing well.

Often, John Wick accomplishes this by being clever. But I think a big part of it comes down to the fact that John Wick is just mortal enough for the number of bad guy’s he’s facing to matter. Each scene needs a sense of “progress,” where the stakes are constantly changing, and sometimes the change in stakes is as simple as, “There are five bad guys, oh no!” Bang bang, pivot, bang bang. “Okay, now there are only three bad guys.” (It’s harder to do this when you’ve been injected with super soldier serum and wear a suit made of high-tech blast resistant stretch fabric: Captain America subduing five bad guys doesn’t feel meaningfully different from him subduing three bad guys, even if the way he punches them is really cool.)

Stakes matter! If threat level scales linearly with the number of bad guys on screen, then each scene will have a natural eb and flow to it as bad guys get gradually picked off (or as more of them stream into the room, or pick themselves up off the floor and reach for the gun they just dropped).

One of the MCU scenes that actually did this better than most is the famous Captain America elevator scene: first, Crossbones and two guys get onto the elevator with cap. A bit surprising. Why is that guy resting his hand on his hip so close to his gun? Several floors later, the elevator opens, and four more guys get on. They’re wearing suits, like you’d expect from people who just showed up for a day at the office. This is headquarters, there’s nothing to be worried about. So why is that guy sweating? Then, the door opens again, and three more guys get on -- and these guys are wearing tac gear. But hey, it’s Jack -- I know Jack, he was in the first ensemble movie, he can’t be one of the bad guys...so why is he standing directly between me and the door?

It’s a great example of slowly amping up the tension by gradually adjusting the threat level up. The scene even amps up the tension by having the magnetic handcuff, which leaves Cap in various stages of incapacitation throughout the fight. And he has to fight his way up from the bottom. But we very quickly go from this iconic shot:

...then after literally three seconds of Cap delivering a rapid series of strikes to incapacitate most of the mooks, he’s back to fighting two or three of them at a time.

Despite there being ten bad guys in the elevator, it’s kind of hard to get a clear fix on how many of them attacking Cap at any given moment, all of the others existing in various states of injury and recovery after they get the wind knocked out of them. In fact, the only shot that allows us to get a full body count is after the fight is over:

But it’s still a fun scene, one of my favorites, succeeding at being fun and memorable.

The bigger issue is the need to be “epic”: threat level can’t scale linearly with the number of bad guys on screen when you want a scene where there are literally hundreds of enemies to fight off.

There’s a certain point at which the marginal effect of another bad guy on screen is effectively zero. Obviously, this is the case when you have hundreds or dozens of enemies on screen, but there’s a real sense in which “group of seven bad guys” doesn’t feel different from “group of six bad guys.” Our brains just categorize both as “a pretty big cluster.” Research tends to come to slightly different results on this, but it seems like humans count “one, two, three, four, many.” Once you have five bad guys on screen, adding a sixth bad guy doesn’t do anything to change the stakes. (That’s the problem with having a hero who’s so strong that you need to throw 10 bad guys at him to pose any threat.)

If you cap the total number of on-screen bad guys at five, then each enemy the hero defeats meaningfully changes the stakes, and John Wick does this a lot. In many cases, the flow just comes from watching the number of bad guys on screen decrease linearly as the hero picks them off, one by one. It gives the scene a natural scenes of progress, and it can sometimes be played for comedy, like Neal Stephenson does in Snow Crash in a scene described by a sniper’s dialog:

"It's, like, one of them drug dealer boats," Vic says, looking through his magic sight. "Five guys on it. Headed our way." He fires another round. "Correction. Four guys on it." Boom. "Correction, they're not headed our way anymore." Boom. A fireball erupts from the ocean two hundred feet away. "Correction. No boat."

That’s a (very short) scene with flow. You can’t rearrange the beats; every beat leads to the next. Follow the logic, and arrive at the punchline.

#writing #john wick #movies #snow crash #neal stephenson

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andmaybegayer · 4 months

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Michael scope

Zeiss Jena Laboval ?3? I think, documentation for the Laboval series online starts and ends with the Laboval 4. By all accounts this is their upper mid range lab scope, with Amplival being the top of the line before you get to big scopes that have to be installed by a technician.

There's a large variety of Zeiss scopes that were manufacturered on this side of the iron curtain, as you can see this is an East German piece. Pretty good condition, scratchy condenser optics but the objectives and eyepiece seem to be in great nick, from a quick inspection, and that's what matters. Eyepieces are 10×'s, Objectives are a 3.2 semiplanar, a 10, a 40 planar (which I think will get a lot of use), and a 100 oil immersion. Pretty normal setup.

I don't have slides and slips yet so I can't do a proper mount, but this is pretty promising for just sliding a sheet of paper into the slide holder. Proper mounting will improve the focus plane immensely. 32× and 100× so far.

The illumination is off-centre and uneven but that's resolvable and anyway it might be fun to move to LED. I also want to build some top illumination brackets for opaque subjects.

I had like. A kiddies toy microscope growing up and I got as far as trying to make it do darkfield with pieces of cardboard, but never something this professional, binocular optics is such a big step up on its own.

The only real issue I've seen so far is that the stage Z axis is very sloppy, huge backlash. Everything has been stuffed with new grease recently so at least it moves smoothly, old scopes and old typewriters both have a tendency to seize if they're forgotten for more than a few months at a time.

I'll swing by the lake and pick up some algae and protist samples later, and I need to order slides and slips. Also I can print some darkfield and oblique illumination filters.

Probably not going to fuck too much with oil immersion, but who knows, also I'll keep an eye out for water immersion objectives.

I think that with an appropriate head replacement and some filter hacking I could get phase contrast microscopy up and running, probably scavenging some Amplival parts. I'd need to see. I can definitely get fluorescence microscopy working with an illumination upgrade. It would also be nice to gut the electronics and put in a simple battery powered illumination system I can charge over USB so I don't have to rely on wall power. Even the stock tungsten lighting is only 5W at 6V so that's easy to swing.

Objectives are DIN 45mm I think, and it sounds like many Eastern Bloc microscopes use standardized head mounts. I'll also be able to print a lot of parts for this, but I'll probably want to get some black filament for optical reasons.

First I want to do some protist sketches, I picked up a protists book at a used bookstore a while ago and it got me really hyped to do protist watching. This is definitely at some level me trying to replace macroscopic wildlife spotting in my life.

#microscopy #carl zeiss #jena laboval #laboval 3

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remadra · 7 months

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I love your pale city teens AU for little nightmares! I saw you included the souwester girl in the character line up, you're the first artist I've ever seen that actually acknowledged her & I was wondering if you'd ever draw her again?

Hi hi! I love Souwester very much, she has a backstory and character depth, to me. I don't think I've seen anyone else talk about her either!

Yeah, I draw her still! Mostly sketches right now!

In my AU she's mostly deaf! She can kind of hear if she's facing someone and watching them speak, so please don't cover your mouth. She uses a modified radio, microphone and headphones to be able to listen to the world around her by recording it and turning it up. Souwester listens to birds by doing this! She likes peppermint tea and apple pie. She kicks her boots off to walk in the grass and she jumps in puddles to splash her friends. She laughs really loudly and picks up bugs to show the other kids. Her friends call her West or Sou for short. She's at the point where she's really gangly and grew tall quickly so she's pretty clumsy and she relies on the others telling her if a monster appears to hide or run.

#anon #ask #anon ask #little nightmares souwester girl #pale city teens #my art #i think about her a lot. she lives with the maw kids.

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chacha-tortuga · 1 month

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Do you have any particular inspirations for your artwork?

Hello!

I will preface this by stating that I draw way less than before for multiple reasons, so it's come to a point where all my inspirations are fuzzy in my mind. My visual library has been fueled a lot these last years but it's become passive to the point of not really thinking about it much anymore. The few times I draw for myself I rely solely on my comfort zone so it's become a feedback loop of trying to stick to my own art and where influences per se get drowed out. But answering this ask I will try really hard to find what got me to have various visual "it makes sense alright". I won't also mention the influences I have for professional related works because they change all the time and when I'm a technician I don't feel like my style has that much of an importance.

So, my Influences :

Style wise I had a before-and-after feeling when I discovered the art of Alexei Kallima. His works focus on various themes but I really am inspired by his paintings depicting hooliganism and violence. His compositions for his series of the team of parachutist women are simply incredible.

Speaking of hooliganism, the short film I Love Hooligans by Jan-Dirk Bouw is also an inspiration.

For my traditional art, I use mostly a gel pen freehand for my sketches, which is my favorite way of drawing all things considered. I use a bit of watercolour occasionaly to make my sketches more lively. My main influence in that medium has to be Gipi and his comic books. My favourite ones are Appunti Per Una Storia Di Guerra and S. You can absolutely see how I shamelessly copied his lines and features on his characters, I find them absolutely delightful.

My friend showed me a short film which was very similar in style, it's called Yul et le Serpent by Gabriel Harel. I loved it.

youtube

In terms of linework, Taiyo Matsumoto was also a before-and-after experience. I discoreved him with Amer Beton and Ping Pong and absolutely got won over style wise with Number Five. I now usually get a bit rougher with my ink lines with my pen like him. He gets different levels of detail and varies style depending on the feeling of a panel or the distance to the viewer. I joke saying he pretty much doesn't give a fuck about the character model and I wish I had that intuition about my own drawings. The animated adaptation of Ping Pong is probably my favorite anime, and inspires me greatly for my animation work. Once again playing with the medium.

My main "intuition" in art has always been colours. I love colouring my art and choosing what goes well with what and do the colour scripts for my projects and all. Movie wise the main guy who gets me creative is Rémi Chayé. The Long Way North is one of my favourite movies and the colours there are insanely good.

Otherwise I'm a huge fan of abstract art, I will only cite Rothko because it's the only one where I've seen his artwork in the flesh and I Get how his colours works organically.

Other abstract artists who inspire me, but not especially related to colours for my art are the russian avant-garde artists, I love constructivism and suprematism (I even got a tattoo of a work by Iakov Chernikhov, the one pictured in fact). So obviously Malevitch (regarding of the period), El Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova etc.

Ukrainian mosaic artists but in particular Galina Zubchenko.

For my personal art including my OCs my main inspiration is the photographer Robert Capa.

Another photographer I love is obviously Robert Mapplethorpe (two Roberts mentionned!).

You'll get that now I mostly draw stuff related to post apocalypse and/or wastelands scenarios, so the books Metro 2033, Roadside Picnic (a lot of books and novels from the Strugatski brothers in general). I tend to stick with an artisanal vision of these settings rather than a fully militarized one. I think it makes everything more interesting.

I can't not include obviously real footage and photographies of modern conflicts I guess.

I guess that's all I can think of "precisely" and can name with certainty. I also have a pinterest board for art inspiration if you want to check it out.

I hope that's not too disappointing of an answer and that it's at least interesting.

#look mom I answered one(1) ask my 2k24 resolutions are DONE #asks #for the others asks i'm sorry if i haven't answered i'm just very bad at them <3 #for the one about my ocs... we'll see if i find stuff to say

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herbofthyme · 2 months

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tips on drawing hands? u do it so good!

omg ty!

It definitely took me a while to become more confident with them, and it was pretty sudden when i realized “wait. this isn’t so unpleasant anymore”

I think the most important thing for me was learning not to focus too much on the specific shapes of the fingers, and think more about the vague shape of the hand as a whole. If you zoom in on my more recent stuff you’ll probably notice that often rather than actually drawing fingers, I sort of draw a suggestion of where the fingers are. If the hands do look more detailed and precise, I’ve just drawn on top of the suggestion where it Feels Right. It’s all about vibes! (And half the time the clean lines feel wayyy worse than the loose sketch i had before lol)

I threw together a little thing here:

Basically, I rely pretty heavily on this funky little 3d trapezoid shape, because it helps me keep the 3d shape of the hand in mind. Then the fingers just kind of… happen. Usually with a fair bit of trial and error. This shape is super helpful to get the vibe of the hand across, but it’s important to remember that it’s a guide, not a rule. I often used to make my hands Way too stiff, because I was keeping the lines on the trapezoid very straight. Bend it! Warp it! Let your trapezoids be weird because hands can be pretty weird.

I’ve seen a lot of tips that say you should separate the pinky and/or index finger from the others, and I often do that. It helps keep the shape just a bit more dynamic, while still letting it be more natural.

An important thing to keep in mind is remembering that the fingers are 3d objects, even if what you’re drawing is still just a suggestion of a finger. I defffinitely used to struggle with this. I’ve placed some red arrows to show what I mean: the base finger should be connecting to the whole face of the trapezoid thing. They have a round base, they aren’t flat. (I know this sounds obvious but it’s SO easy to accidentally flatten them).

Depending on the angle I also will use circles to vaguely represent the joints in the finger, which helps a lot with foreshortening . I tried to show this in the bottom right.

Trial and error is also sooo essential for me. I’m going for the vibe of a hand, not a detailed hand. Lots of erasing and redoing until it feels like a hand. Most of my art is very sketchy in general, so this might not work well for people with more detailed styles or precise line art, but it helps me to keep in mind.

Anyway, don’t be afraid to look at your own hands for reference! Think about how your fingers intersect with the main part of your hand. I hate studying photos (it’s so much effort lol) but it can be VERY helpful. The more comfortable you get, the less you need to look at reference, but I still lift my hand up and contort it into silly shapes all the time! Hopefully I explained this coherently :)

#thank u for the ask!!#i like getting them hehe #ask #anon #tutorial #hands #artsyfartsy #digital art

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opashoo · 1 year

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have you ever done/will you ever do a speedpaint, timelapse, or tutorial on that lovely pixel art style you have there?

First of all, thank you, but also, I don't really have a process that's too different from pretty basic digital sketching/inking/coloring. I'll usually keep my canvases within a 500px to ~2000px range in either dimension in order to keep the aliasing of the pixels visible and meaningful, and focus on solid blocks of color instead of any gradients or blending. Other than that, I mostly just rely on certain tools to do a pixellated look.

Back when I used Paint Tool SAI, I used the binary brush and fill tool for pretty much everything. In order to make screentones, I would draw a pattern by hand, then copy and paste until I'd filled a whole layer, and then manipulate that with a clipping group.

Nowadays, I use Krita, which provides me with multiple tools that I can use for pixel art:

A fixed width brush that I can use for fine details, writing, or certain kinds of lining. I usually keep it anywhere from 1 to 5 px wide. For a short while, I was using it as my primary liner.

A dense dithering brush. Saves me time making those pixel screentones. They don't tend to play nice when people zoom out tho.

A half-as-dense dithering brush.

A pressure sensitive pixel brush. This is what I do a majority of my lining work with. The minimum width is 1px, and I usually keep the max at 8px.

Another fixed width brush that I usually leave on eraser at a super wide weight so I can erase things easily. Alternatively I'll switch off the erase and use it to paint huge areas a solid color.

Honorable mention: The fill tool.

This drawing, I used 4 for all the lining work, and 1 for the rectangle in the background and eyebrow piercing, since that's a really neat and regular shape. I used 2, 3, and the fill tool to create three different value levels.

With my latest drawing, I did basically everything on Panne with 4. I used no screentones for this drawing, opting instead to make things either solid black, or very tightly hatched by hand. Part of this decision was because I knew I was going to be coloring it, so I didn't need the screentones to convey value. The other part was that I wanted this drawing to look good regardless of the zoom level.

Meanwhile, everything in the background was done with the 1 brush, 2px wide so that I was working with a fixed width the entire time in order to help create a contrast: the fixed, fine lines of the background vs the wider, more variable and expressive lines on Panne.

In case it's helpful, here's what the Panne drawing looked like in progress. The point is that the work is pretty simple and straightforward as far as process goes. It's just sketch, ink, and color. It's mostly the tools that get me the distinct look I really like.

#shark rambles #maybe at some point I'll post up a video of my workflow #Aside from that I hope this helps #Thank you for asking #my art #my sketches #panne #amelieverse #pixel art #tutorial

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soras-art-haven · 5 months

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Team Pixie Dust Admins!

Hey! If you liked to watch MandJTV around the late 2010s like little ol' moi, you might recall the existence of Team Pixie Dust, his frankly AWESOME on-the-spot evil team. I like the team idea, so I decided to design its admins!

(Didn't really feel like sketching and lining full-detail full-bodies, so I traced over an IbisPaintX chibi base. Also, I tried some new stuff with my art- tell me if you like it!)

Naomi: The most hardline traditionalist of the Pixie Dust admins- her aesthetic is even based on Cure Dream from the popular magical girl show Yes! Pretty Cure 5! She uses exclusively Fairy-types and pink-colored Pokemon- basically like the grunts, but much stronger. Personality-wise, she acts like your typical magical girl anime protagonist, but more cunning and strategic. She often butts heads with the other admins about their less traditionally "cutesy" aesthetics. She often makes a non-poisoned version of Pixie Puffs for Pixie Dust's own use.

Aiden: Team Pixie Dust's resident tomboy. She primarily uses Fire-types like Flareon, and has a bit of a weird idea of what she considers "cute". If she were in Paldea, she would have a Fire-Tera type Blissey. She's hotheaded and rambunctious, going heavily on the offense in battle. Her temper is short and she's quite the sore loser. She often uses foul language, or at least the strongest language she really can within the parameters of an E10+ game.

Azaela: Teased a fair bit for her ridiculously long hair, but she doesn't care at all- though to be fair, she doesn't care about much other than the Pokemon in her and the rest of Team Pixie Dust's possession. Her team consists of Grass-types and flower-based Pokemon and the like. She's quiet and reserved, a woman of few words. She's regarded as one of the strongest battlers in Pixie Dust, and for good reason- whenever she's not doing the dirty work for Pixie Dust, upholding their public image, or tending to plants or Pokemon, she's training her team to be its very best. Often the first to snark when the grunts do stupid stuff that makes their plans go awry.

Noelle: The main planner for the team, and practically Shayla's second in command. Her team mainly consists of Ice- and Water-type Pokemon. She's cold, cunning, and ruthless in battle. The most intelligent and strategic of the team by far, and did a lot of the work perfecting the Pixie Puffs formula. She knows how to use psychological tricks to get what she wants, and this has proven extremely helpful for Pixie Dust. She presents a charming and kind persona in public, often by Shayla's side during speeches. Despite her usual calmness, coolness, and collectedness, she tends to flip out when things don't go according to plan.

Extra notes:

Each one of them has one Eeveelution, as the Eeveelutions are commonly considered cute and still can fit right in with their respective type preferences.

Arceus help you if your strategy relies on outspeeding your opponents. These girls' 'mons all have maxed-out IVs and EVs in Speed, as that stat loosely corresponds to the Cute condition in Pokemon contests. Aiden and Azaela's Pokemon also have some pretty good investments in Attack and Special Attack, respectively, since those stats have a connection to the Cool and Beautiful conditions, respectively. Put it all together, and this team is pretty menacing all around.

At their ultimate defeat, while they're getting hauled off by the authorities, Naomi is breaking down in distress, Aiden and Noelle are breaking down in anger, and Azaela is mostly unfazed- if anything, she's merely dissapointed, like "ah... what a shame..." or something.

I'll make some proper art for these girlies later, so stay tuned for that!

#💮art i created!💮#💮sora talks💮#pokemon #mandjtv #team pixie dust #pixie dust admin naomi #pixie dust admin aiden #pixie dust admin azaela #pixie dust admin noelle #💮sora's ocs💮

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flownwrong · 7 months

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ask game yay

Happy Wincest Wednesday! (or Sunday in this case) I have a few questions for people to answer. Feel free to answer them all or just one (or none at all) even if you’re not tagged!

what song describes samdean the most?

man. i used to have a painstakingly crafted playlist with like narrative and all but it's been rendered obsolete in the couple years since by the change in both my taste and my perception of them. if i had to choose one right now, i'd go with you and i in unison by la dispute, because la dispute are 1) good poetry 2) good at longing and devotion 3) this particular song is about grief but not loss of love so it feels like a post-finale song (i encourage you to listen or read the full lyrics)

I will sing sweetly, hope that the notes change but

I do not need it to happen. I’m not resigned to it. And

If they never do I’ll sing your name in every line

Just like I did throughout this, just like I’ve always done

In every gun, the empty church, and every tortured son

In all those giving up, in all those giving in

Until I die I will sing our names in unison

my other go-to artists for them would be mount eerie and, ig, townes

if spn was set in europe, what country would the Winchesters be from? What language/languages would they speak (+ what car would they drive if not the impala, kinda)

haha okay i don't have any strong headcanons but i can tell you about a specific russian au we had going with friends and even meant to ttrpg the setting a little but it never worked out

dean was driving an old volga gaz-21 third series (which might have connotations that do not need exploring at this juncture but i'm actually very bad at both cars and soviet history lol) which would be pretty damn cool if lovingly maintained all the way from 60s to 2005 and of course dean would call it "lastochka" (a common endearment for beloved cars) only i have no idea how possible it would be for hypothetical john to get one in the first place

and he wouldn't really have grown up on bootlegs of western music so much as the likes of Kino and maybe even Grazhdanskaya Oborona which was weird af but also massively beloved across different classes subcultures and backgrounds so

talking monsters of the week, i'd love to see their ass kicked by a rusalka (mermaid but creepier) or even a domovoy for comedy (those are generally helpful but mischievous) and get into all kinds of trouble with an array of superstitions while helping the babushkas who give the superstitions power by relying so strongly on them, especially in little villages...

is there a project you’re working on currently? Do you have a line or sketch from it to share?

maybe? i hope to rework one of my longer wips into a short but finished (god please) fic but don't hold your breath

what’s the first fanfic for supernatural you’ve written? Did you publish it? Or if you don't write: what's the first fanfic you remember reading?

yeah, i've published it. was for first-time fest, where you picked an episode and did a first-time. coincidentally, i was going through my drafts and found a 2+ years old reblog of it i never posted, so since i didn't even reblog it for timezones then, have a link now (if you read it and like it feel free to reblog this blast from the past haha)

is there another codependent/enmeshed duo from a different fandom you enjoy? Are there parallels to Sam and Dean?

jesus. dunno, i don't think so? they have quite a unique combo of wholesome/dark/devoted

what type of wincest dynamic do you currently enjoy most? (sexual, platonic, dark, fluffy, early seasons, etc.)

the same one i've always enjoyed most — late seasons kind of bittersweet but securely established relationship vibe (in spirit of self-promotion, do check out my ao3 for more of the same haha!)

tagging whoever wants to be tagged etc etc. @prince-of-elsinore tysm for tagging me—it was fun!

#tag games #spn #wincest #samndean

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dmitryanya · 2 months

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Hello! I just saw your newsies character designs and I’m OBSESSED!!! Especially with that line art! I’m staring so closely and totally vibing! Do you mind if I ask what your process is with it? And how you pick the colors? 💕

Hi! First off all, thank you for making my day with your kind words!! I'm so happy you enjoy my work!! <3

I use the HB Pencil on Procreate to do all my sketching/line art. Usually I throw down a loose sketch to get an idea of the pose and expression down, lower the opacity, and then on the next layer go over the sketch to do the clean line work! I rely heavily of references for posing/anatomy, so I've usually got a mishmash of it in there (I take a lot of pictures of myself for this purpose).

The line work itself is pretty organic and intuitive for me, I like playing with the line weight to imply volume and shape, so I don't have much of a process there to elaborate on! As for colors, I try and keep them pretty balanced as I go, usually opting for a warmer, desaturated version of the original colors ( particularly for the newsies characters), and then add some low opacity multiply layers on when I add the textures to keep everything harmonized. When I add the colors, each one is on its own layer, and I plop them into place using the lasso tool!

Hope this helps clarify, but if you would like me to elaborate on anything I can certainly try!! :)

#thanks for sending this in !! made my day !!

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thepatchycat · 5 months

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Hi, I’m a real new shiny here (on Tumblr, but also at drawing), and it’s the first time I ask anything, so I hope it’s ok. I must say first that I love the way you draw TCW characters (especially the clones)! 😍 I just came across this sketch you made on canvas (if I remember correctly) https://www.tumblr.com/thepatchycat/729224397978828800 and I was wondering, if you don’t mind sharing, how do you get the perfect white background on non-digital drawings? I currently use a scanner app on my sketches and the results are always inconsistent and far from that white… thanks a lot in advance!! 😊

Welcome to the Tumblr crew, shiny! ;) And thank you kindly!

So my dirty secret for that sketch is... it actually is completely digital! I drew it in a program called Rebelle 5, which is designed to mimic traditional canvas/paper and pencils/paints. I picked it up for super cheap during a huge sale last year, and it's a lot of fun; unfortunately, it's usually pretty expensive, as many art programs are. I highly recommend keeping an eye out for sales though if you ever get into digital drawing--and if you'd like a free program, the one I use most of the time is MediBang. But those programs are really mostly helpful for digital art, not so much for scanning actual pencil sketches.

While I tend to stick to digital drawing nowadays, I definitely feel you on the scan cleanliness issue; phone pictures and even proper printer scans tend to end up either kind of dirty or faded. The short answer is that I don't actually have an easy and effective solution, but there might be some things you can try depending on what you have available. I wouldn't be surprised if you've already explored more methods than I have, and there are definitely people with better ideas and more experience than me, but I'll share what I've tried.

Long(er)-winded rambling under the cut!

So, I currently have an unfinished piece sitting in my files that began as a traditional drawing, one that I want to keep all the pencil details for. Here's the sketchbook page, scanned using a household printer:

Not terrible, but it'd be nice to have clearer contrast between the lines and the background. In MediBang, I can adjust the contrast by going to Filter>Levels (or Ctrl+L), which gives me a little box that looks like this:

I don't technically know the nitty gritty of how it works, but by my understanding, the outer triangles for the input and output indicate the range boundaries. Adjusting the input--particularly the darker boundary--so that the output boundary exceeds it basically tells the program to make the darker parts even darker, resulting in this:

Better! As you can see, though, the darker parts of the background also show up a bit more. Rather than relying only on contrast adjustments, what I actually ended up doing was carefully erasing the background around the drawing after adding a plain white layer underneath, and also going over some of the lines digitally. I did this first in MediBang (the only art program I had when I started working on it), then transferred the file over to Rebelle.

MediBang (left) has the pure white background, while the Rebelle (right) canvas settings I chose are a little off-white and more textured, which I think blends a bit better with the texture and shading of the image. It's possible to add textures and the like in MediBang, too, but Rebelle has it built into its design, so it's a little easier to figure out there; I'll likely finish this piece in Rebelle (whenever I get back to doing so, haha), since the canvas and brush settings will be easier to match to the texture of everything that came directly from the drawing.

Most of this is much easier to do with a drawing tablet/pen, unless you're a wizard with a mouse. As for traditional means... the best suggestion I can come up with is to try inking sketches, or at least darkening them further with a pencil. The more contrast you can get between your lines and the background, the more easily you can digitally tease that contrast out even further. I think most photo editors have at least some contrast, color, and brightness adjusters, and probably more useful functions I don't even know about--it never hurts to mess around with any program's filters and settings to see what happens!

Good luck, and happy drawing! :D

#Patchy Babbles #Asks #I love getting asks so it's more than okay!#Sorry the answer is basically that that sketch is a lie haha #Someone on the internet has probably figured out more effective tricks but that someone is not me #Also your art looks super good!#You have a great eye for detail~

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swollenbabyfat · 8 months

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What is your favourite step in making art?

Hmm! I like the whole process for the most part...I will talk a bit about what I like about them.

-A lot of times concepts for stories, or a piece of a story, come to me like lighting or something, but illustrations take a lot more of a thought process for me. I think a lot about symbolism for my pieces and tend to do research about the things I want to include- for instance, I love to use flower language. I'll look at my inspiration blog and sometimes Pinterest but my "visual library" has grown decently enough that I don't have to always do this now, but did a lot a couple of years ago! I make Pintrest boards for bigger pieces/projects sometimes and they're definitely handy for collaborative work!

-Thumbnailing is pretty straight forward, I do it a lot more now than I use to, and it's helped to improve my compositions a lot.

-Sketching is probably the most difficult step for me a lot of the time, but I still enjoy it a lot. Figuring out form is something I've been struggling a lot with recently, which means I need to do more studies and life drawing again typically. I'll grab visual references at this point as well to make sure anatomy looks good, etc.

-Linework/rendering is probably my favorite step...it's truly meditative to me! Especially with my more recent methods of doing it. It's definitely what takes me the longest out of all the steps, which can be trying on my patience sometimes but if I put on a good show or music I can be fine.

-Coloring is kind of second nature to me! I don't actually think about it that much all the time anymore, though I've been trying to challenge myself more lately (felt like I relied too heavily on using complimentary colors for ALL my pieces for a while..which isn't bad obviously but I felt I needed to add more breadth to my work.)

-Final effects feel I rush too often cause I'm like I'M DONE I'M DONE LET ME GET TO THE FINISH LINE kind of mindset! That being said it's nice to see a piece come to life and sometimes I kind of shock myself how the final will compare to the WIP/halfway point of the piece.

Yeah! Thank you for your ask!

#ask #faq #process #long

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steakout-05 · 22 days

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ok as an artist i personally find traditional painting to be. really really annoying. like. i do not have the patience for it and i just find it to be really frustrating to set up and actually do and i end up not liking the results. i find that there's little room for mistakes and trying to fix them usually ends up with me making 50 other ones, paints can be so inconsistent and having to rely on availability and certain brands to continue making the paint is really inconvenient, not to mention expensive. spending a bunch of time trying to mix the right shade of paint, only for it to go down a completely different shade of colour and not being able to do anything about it is so frustrating as someone who likes consistency and having things just, y'know, not change colour as soon as it dries. plus, they all use different chemicals and can go off really easily or change textures and i am just not ok with having all my materials having an expiration date like food. lead and graphite pencils just don't do that and they can last for years, they're more reliable. every paint is drastically different and trying to find the right one is not only time consuming but, again, expensive, and i don't even see the point in experimenting when most of my materials end up not even getting used if i don't like using them. plus, i'm just.... really impatient. waiting for paint to dry sucks and is why i much prefer digital or just drawing something because i don't need to wait for anything, it just works. and then when i do want to take my time and work slowly for a better result, it dries too fast. it's kinda hellish trying to balance that time, especially considering how inconsistent paints are.

i like to use guidelines when doing art and i find painting straight onto a canvas to be really tricky because there's a lack of direction for me to actually paint. i'm at a complete loss at what to do when i pick up a brush because i can't map it out first without risking screwing up the paint. there's just so many things to keep track of and so much wet paint to avoid and i just do not have the mind for it. putting colours on a canvas and praying that it works just isn't it for me and requires a discipline that i just don't wanna involve myself with. painting is also just like... really exhausting and kinda painful. i got some pretty bad back issues and my arms tire and get sore easily and quickly when i'm standing in front of a canvas. it's a really physical activity for me and i just don't find something to be very fun to do at all when it's physically hurting me. i know drawing on a canvas has this issue too, which is why i prefer sketchbooks. sitting down and drawing something that doesn't break my entire spine every time i do it is much more preferrable than questioning if i should go to the doctor every time i make a brushstroke, lol

that's not to say that there's nothing i like about painting though! i can paint simple little things, and i like doing that. i like mixing colours with a palette knife and i find it fun and even a little relaxing. i painted some cute little chibi cardboard cutouts of the mario brothers one time and i found that to be really fun and i think i'd like to do that again! but apart from that, i just do not have the patience for it. i love the look of traditional paintings and i find many to be really beautiful, but i could never get into actually doing it myself because i hate the process. i'm content with just sketching and doing digital stuff because that's more fun to me and less stressful of a process to do. it's fun, it allows for more mistakes, it's easier to build up layers of shading and lines, not to mention using building up a figure with guidelines is super helpful with visualising what i want it to look like, and i can just erase something if i don't want it there or want to change something. it just makes sense to me.

tl;dr i dont like painting because it's inconsistent, expensive, time-consuming, directionless, frustrating and it makes my back hurt really bad. i'll just stick to drawing stuff :)

#vent #artist vent #i hate painting #i hate it so much and i just cannot understand it nor do i have the patience for it #i seriously had a crack at it and i just find it to be so annoying #there's so much preparation and i'd much prefer just whipping out a pencil and eraser and scribbling something down #to be fair though i do enjoy other art mediums that require more preparation #i find crafts to be fun and i really like working with air dry clay #using clay is just creating a little creature and i really quite like it a lot #making little cardboard guys is fun if not a bit tricky sometimes because my hands are so big compared to the tiny bits of carboard im usin #but it's very fun and cardboard is easy to get #clay is not so easy to get but you can get a lot of it and make many things with it #the only things i really dont like about clay is fingerprints and the fear of having your art literally explode when you fire it up #but other than that? fun!#painting? not fun!#paint is so messy and i don't like having goopy stuff getting stuck on me and all over my fingers all the time funnily enough #if i bump into something (which is very likely for me because i am clumsy) then oouuguh there goes all the paint its everywhere now #oh my god you know what i hate the most. i hate oil paints. i hate them so much.#the smell gives me bad headaches and makes me feel faint and it's hard to clean and dispose of and it's just more chemicals to deal with #it's just acrylic but more annoying #i don't think it's edible either which is. frustrating #it's also harder to clean out if you get stained with it (which is very likely because paint is messy)#i just dislike oil materials in general. they smell weird and they do not wash off. i still have oil pastel stains on one of my favourite-#-shirts despite the fact that it has been washed multiple times. and it took several days and so much fucking scrubbing to get-#-it out of my nails and off my hands completely. actual hellscape.#i know graphite and lead pencils would never betray me like this #pencils are so reliable and i love them <3 #pencils and drawing equipment in general are just more reliable and don't expire or develop inconsistent textures (except erasers for some-#-reason) and they don't! hurt! my! back!#like i'm over here needing to do the riker maneuver to sit down after i paint my back hurts so bad

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arvensnumberone · 1 year

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Together forever – Arven x Reader

Together forever – Arven x Galarian!Reader

First post okkk, I genuinely didn’t know what to make the title, and I hate this so much cause I started writing in Y/n’s POV instead of Narrators POV and I can’t write for Y/n’s POV like ever it’s so bad. I’m not happy with this at all I’m probably gonna re-write this like one day. Also I didn’t really know how to write the second part (after the line) so that part was rushed and not as well-written as the first part was. Also reader is gn, if I used she/her or he/him anywhere where I should have used they/them pls lmk,

Warnings(?): Kissing(really light), cringe(extremely), sensitive reader(reader cries like 5 times I think) I don’t think there’s anything else and none of these are really ‘warnings’ so yea!

Words: 1 820(including stuff above the line), 1 690(excluding stuff above the line)

………………………………………………………………………………

This week was graduation week. All my seniors were overjoyed at the fact they were finally graduating. Several graduation parties were being held right before the last day of school since final exams had just ended. I was of course happy too, I could finally be a senior myself and I was soon going to be a year closer to graduating. But a part of me just really wasn’t happy as well. The thought of all my friends leaving me behind didn’t sit right with me. I was the youngest in my friend group. Nemona, Penny, and Arven. They were all a year above me. The reason we became friends was well, I don’t really actually even remember. That’s not the point here though. The point is that all my close friends would be leaving me, I could deal with it during class since there were a few people in my class who I had taken a liking too and was able to be their partners during projects. But outside of class I relied on them. It made me anxious to even think about being all alone again. I didn’t know what to do. I stared at the clock it was almost time for class. Had I really been awake from 11pm all the way till 6am? I usually fell asleep easily thinking about all sorts of things. It was easy for me to fall asleep; in fact I enjoyed it, being able to close your eyes and not have to worry about anything.

I dragged my feet into class, the day was spent mainly fooling around, playing bored games, etc. Nothing really interesting. I dozed of majority of the time, or just listened to my classmates talking about what they were going to do during summer break and how we all should meet up. If you ask me the idea wasn’t bad, but I’d rather sleep in.

I opened my eyes as I heard the bell ring for break. I hurriedly got up from my seat and rushed over to the area me and my friends usually sat at. I waited for a bit. And waited some more. . . .It didn’t seem like they were coming, they were probably on that field trip they were talking about. Apparently they were going today morning I think and are coming back on the last day of school. Must be nice. I got up from the place I was sitting at and walked around while eating my lunch. I settled for sitting in a corner and just watch the younger students run around and play tag until the bell rang.

The rest of the day was pretty boring just going around from class to class and listening to student’s gossip. Eventually though I had arts. The teacher had requested us to draw something that came from our hearts. Whatever that meant. I stared at the blank sheet of paper I had gotten and thought of what I could even draw. Before I even knew it I started drawing, a boy I think. I couldn’t really tell yet. I was simply just drawing what I felt like I should. All of a sudden I stared back down at the paper and saw a boy, or maybe it was a girl? The hair seemed familiar almost too familiar. My cheeks felt hot as I realized who I started drawing, I crumpled up the drawing and threw it away. Screw my brain. I only had 10 more minutes to draw something. I eventually grabbed another paper and quickly sketched out an Umbreon and Espeon and handed it.

I walked out of class and walked to my dorm, oh my Arecus was I lonely. I should probably try and make some friends in my grade next year. I fiddled with the keys to my dorm and walked inside closing the door behind me. I took off my shoes and crawled onto my bed. I stared at the wall and my stomach was making funny knots. It didn’t hurt but it sure didn’t feel good either. I thought I was having a stomach ache or something of that sort but it didn’t feel the same. This either happened from the thought of being lonely or whatever I was doing in art class. I turned around I threw my head into my pillow before I felt my phone vibrating. I groaned as I opened it. It was from the gc with me and my friends. They had apparently been messaging in there for like what 10 minutes now? I don’t know how I just realized. I opened the gc and scanned over the messages.

Arven Hey buddy! How ya doing?

-10 minutes ago

Nemona HI YN ARE YOU AWAKE OR DID U SLEEP THROUGH ALL YOUR CLASSES AGAIN ??

-5 minutes ago

Penny Calm down it’s been 5 minutes plus its 4pm, they’re probably heading back to their dorm.

-5 minutes ago

Arven But what if something happened? They usually respond really quickly even if they’re in class

-4 minutes ago

Nemona Exactly

-4 minutes ago

Penny What’s your point you imbeciles

-4 minutes ago

Arven Ouch words hurt penny

-3 minutes ago

Penny And idc

-1 minute ago

Weren’t they all in the same place? Why were they communicating in a group chat.. I stared at the messages. I didn’t really know what to say and you were too tired to even reply back. But it was obvious I had read it by now so I quickly typed a quick good night to the group chat and set my phone aside, not bothering to see what they had said afterwards.

I changed out of my uniform and into something else and jumped onto my bed as I closed my eyes. But same thing as last night, I couldn’t sleep. I found myself wanting to cry at the thought of being lonely again. I didn’t want to be alone, or for them to go, I really loved them. I loved how energetic Nemona could be, I admired her for that. I also really loved Penny and how sweet she could be underneath all that ice. I especially loved Arven, I couldn’t really pinpoint why but I knew I did. Just thinking of him made my heart flutter. At some point I started crying into my pillow, it was just too much for me to handle at the time.

………………………………………………………………………………

The whole week had passed with the same schedule. Today they were finally graduating and you’d be a senior. The morning half of your classes was some-what fun, I wish I could enjoy it as much as my classmates had been. I hated the thought of being alone, but I had to accept it. The bell rang and I got up, your vision was blurry, though there weren’t any tears in it and my chest started hurting. Everything felt un-real. Maybe I was being dramatic. I got up from my seat as the bell rang. I was walking to the table me and my friends usually sat at. My walking came to a halt and I turned around. I can’t really explain what came over me but I really didn’t wanna see them right now. I was sort of starting to regret walking away but I couldn’t help it, I just needed some space at the moment.

The rest of the day passed by fairly quickly, I was just lying down on my bed while watching tv till all of a sudden my phone started vibrating. I hurriedly reached for it and checked it. It was a message from Arven.

“Hey buddy where you at?”

“At my dorm, why?”

“Aren’t you gonna come orr”

“Oh Yea ok I’ll be down there give me a minute”

“cya” liked by y/n

You changed into one of your outfits and put on your shoes and ran out of your dorm closing the door behind you. You went outside and started searching for your friends. You found them eventually standing near a fountain, talking.

“Hey”

“Hi”

“Hey Y/n!”

“Hey buddy”

We all stared at each other awkwardly in silence till Nemona spoke up.

“I’m just gonna get some food be right back”

“I’ll go with you wait” Nemona ran off with Penny trailing behind.

“So…where were you all day?”

“I was just walking around, kinda forgot you all came back from your trip today sorry”

“Oh, I wanted to give you something”

“Hm?”

Arven grabbed something from his backpack and handed it to me. It was a…a pokeball? A cherish one to be exact. I grabbed the pokeball and examined it carefully.

“Go ahead, open it”

“Oh, there’s something inside?”

“Y/n…it’s a pokeball…why would I give you an empty one…”

“Oh.”

I threw the pokeball out excited to see what pokemon was inside. It was a… an applin? I looked back at him, his face was a light read color and I looked back at the applin. I examined a bit more till it finally hit me. My face was burning and I was sure he could feel the heat radiating off of me by now.

“You love me?” Why am I so stupid? Of course that’s why he gave me an applin, there’s no other explanation! I’m from Galar, and he just came back from a trip to Galar!

“Yea, I totally get if you don’t feel the same wa-“

I cut him off by placing a kiss on his cheek. “I love you too! I never would have thought you liked me back..I guess that’s why I ignored you guys when you all came back, I couldn’t stand seeing you all at the time…I especially couldn’t see you, my chest felt tight whenever I even thought of you leaving so I just avoided you all, I’m so-“I was cut off by him placing a kiss on my face and pulling away.

“You talk too much sometimes, you know? I already knew that you idiot! And, I’ll never leave you, so come on let’s go find those two.” He said grabbing my hand to go search for Penny and Nemona together.

#yuna #this was longer than i anticipated #oops #cringe #firstpost #arvensnumberone #arven #penny #cassiopea #nemona #foryou #arven x reader

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