"He’s frozen stiff, threatening claws now hovering down to the side—his eyes look huge in the darkness, that faint white glow giving just the slightest of his expression away. 

He still doesn’t strike."

- all because of you (i do right) by puppyblue on ao3, Chapter 1. @puppyblueao3 here on tumblr i think!

(does this count as a fic rec or fanart. both, probably. rambles under the cut.)

SO uh—i'm really picky about fanfiction. like. really really picky.

i dunno why exactly, but i kinda have a hard time reading them right away bc a) i'm not really a shipper and that's most fanfiction i've seen and b) i like when i can really imagine the characters saying and doing whatever it is they're doing.

y'know the whole "he would not fucking say that" meme? lmao that's me, but with fanfics and only to myself. (i know everyone has their niche and i'm not here to police anybody's fun, just curate my own.)

anyway all that to say that i really, really liked this one. a lot. it's canon divergent off of into the spiderverse, and if you can believe it the comic is literally not a spoiler bc it's in the summary of the fic. but if you liked uncle aaron or even just are a sucker for redemption (? ish?) arcs, i think you'd like it! with all the angst and chaos from atsv it's a nice change of pace.

It's January and winter blues is real, people! I've been trying to do more stuff that I love to keep the spirits up, and this includes studying animation. I've admired it for a long time, but mostly by just staring at concept art and reading on how really advanced stuff is made; however, after catching up on some cartoons during the lockdowns (such as Avatar, Over the Garden Wall, Gravity Falls and Steven Universe) I realized that I'm much more interested in the character animation and storyboard/storytelling part, which very nicely intersects with my other interests in writing and drawing - and I decided to study it all a bit more!

So these are my

complete beginner's notes on learning character animation that no one asked for, by someone who is definitely not qualified to talk about it

Figure drawing. This is the first thing that will hit you like a ton of bricks if you as much as glance in this direction. I'm in two minds about this: on the one hand, some practice in this area is obviously essential (duh!); on the other, this sometimes becomes a genre in itself, a specifically stylized drawing just for the sake of, well, pretty drawing. Which isn't helpful if you're doing it for practice. Also, if you thought that art of naked women in ridiculous poses is about two centuries dead... well, yeah you're wrong. (Seriously, what's up with that? There are some things in the art world that I just don't get.) As for how to learn it, there are plenty of classical books on the subject and apparently a lot of Discourse on which method is The Best; I'm trying not to get too deep into that and currently am just learning by practice and trying out different techniques.

The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. This book was quickly pointed out to me as A Classic, and I'm having a lot of fun doing some basics with it in Pencil2D, but oh my God a good portion of this book really did not age well. It's full of reverence towards the Golden Age of animation, blatant misogyny and the ever-present incompetent "in-betweener" (animation assistant), whose problems seem to stem from the fact that he's always "plugged in" listening to music (because I'm sure that's the only reason the lowest link in the famously underpaid industry would not produce a masterpiece in every drawing). Basically, animation basics are covered really well, but there are tons of animation industry (and just life) details that are decades out of date (or at least no longer relevant for most western studios from what I know about their workflow). I didn't know that an animation handbook could be so annoying.

Perspective! For Comic Book Artists by David Chelsea. I picked this one up because of Rebecca Sugar's recommendation and all the interesting stuff she talks about in interviews about perspective. I can't comment on the book much yet since I've barely started it, but it looks fun, and perspective is definitely an important aspect that I hadn't been paying enough attention to; also interesting to try and tanslate some of these concepts to perspective in writing (reminds me about what Philip Pullman said about "camerawork").

Art books (featured here WolfWalkers and Steven Universe). I have a few more back at home - have always enjoyed them, and one can learn much from them as well. However they are heavy and expensive, so that's something to consider - for example if you're a student like me, who doesn't have tons of free cash and will probably have to move a lot. But hey, times are dark, so sometimes I do threat myself...

Software. I like doing doodles digitally, especially when learning - spoiling a lot of paper makes me feel bad, while digital drawing allows me to relax a bit more, since every bad drawing is just one click away from oblivion. The conventional choice for drawing is Photoshop, but there are definitely decent free alternatives out there. For animation tests I'm using Pencil2D - it's free and perfect for a beginner. However, one thing that you'll need if you want to try out digital art is a graphic tablet - I'm afraid computer drawing isn't really feasible without one, unless you're into VERY specific art styles. But in good news, there's not much difference between super advanced and very basic ones, so a simple one will serve you just fine! I'm using my old trusty Wacom, purchased many years ago for saved-up pocket money, and it's working great.

Well, there we are - no idea whether this is useful for anyone, but I hope it is. My take-home message here is that learning art is fun, and there are many different types of "art" that you can learn and do on your own - it's not just oils and pastels :) And of course it's not really feasible to get as good as actual art school students on your own - but there's still plenty of interesting stuff you can do!

If there are any actual art/animation people reading this - I apologize for my amateur dabbling, and would be interested to hear if you have any tips!