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#this was just gonna be a monochromatic drawing but then I wanted to see how it’d look in color
u3pxx · 1 year
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How do you choose the colors in your art? Your color palettes always look so cohesive and so pleasing to look at!
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ah, this is gonna be pretty long so i'll talk about it under keep reading :^]
now i am no expert!!! i am just a guy!!!! i'll just be talking about how i do it! ok!
PART 1: COLORS??? HELP.
i really like going with warm stuff on my art so it's kind of a given that most colors i use end up wounding up on this side of the color wheel
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so, let's say i'm coloring trucy, a character who wears blue, i end up choosing warmer looking blues, sometimes i end up choosing purple or gray if the other colors i chose makes it look like blue, yannow, color theory and stuff. like this for example!
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now the first one is noticeably blue, but the second one is like a lavender and third one is like, really not blue! it's like a desaturated rose color or something, however, paired with the right colors...
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they're all "blue", aren't they?
PART 2: CHOOSE WEIRD COLORS
by weird colors, i mean colors that aren't like what the thing looks like irl. like, a leaf is green right? but, it doesn't have to be when you color it!
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like when i color things gold sometimes, i use a light and desaturated red-orange for it or how like with the color blue, i don't even use blue at all!
now just because i use warmer tones a lot doesn't mean i don't use the colors from the other side of the color wheel, it depends really, if the color scheme i'm going for is monochromatic or if i really wanted to make something pop
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but of course, you can't just color willy-nilly, you gotta take into account
PART 3: CONTEXT AND MOOD
where and when is your drawing set? what's the mood? are we having fun here or are there Horrors?
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see how it changes the mood? the things we're supposed to be feeling when we look at the drawing? yeahg. ill use warmer colors when i want the drawing to look happy dreamy etc but ill break out the blues and greens when we're in sinister town pftt
also, just wanted to share again how other colors can change what another color looks like:
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PART 4: GRADIENT MAPS AND OVERLAY LAYERS
now as for making colors more cohesive... seriously, just slap that thing on top of your piece and it helps the colors get together even more! like of course i choose my own colors but gradient maps + overlay layers are kind of like adding that one final thing.
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i'll use this one as an example, left one is no gradients maps/overlays and the right one is with them. i just really prefer some good ol' ourple tones in my art so there are a couple of things i add on top to really bring out the warmth in here, like so:
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PART 5: ANYTHING ELSE?
uhhh don't be afraid to use tools in your program to correct the colors you don't like ala color balance tone curve contrast brightness etc etc.
hell, you can even color pick from like irl pictures and adjust accordingly to what colors you want.
i also do have like colors that i consistently use when shading things after countless trial and error; like how i'll use purple to shade red, blue to shade with green etc etc
ig that's all, hope this helps!
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miss-bvnny · 6 months
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And what if none of their souls were saved? They went to their maker impeccably shaved
My own little spooky challenge for the month!! Two of my favorite things: Sweeney Todd 07, and giving fictional characters government assigned fursonas!!
Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett - Dalmatian and Red fox
When I started this, I KNEW I wanted Todd to be an animal that was black and white. The monochromatic theme in Depp's version of Sweeney is SO Tim Burton that I wanted to preserve it. ALMOST settled on a skunk, but the thought of dalmatian spots mixing with blood spots was TOO cool of a concept in my eyes. TBH there WAS a time when I was tempted to make him a fox, because Sweeney TODD. Get it? But I held off because I didn't want to reuse specific animals TOO much. Speaking of which-
Mrs Lovett was always a fox from the first second. It fits her entire character (Seductive, trickster, lots of red, not to be trusted) FAR too well. The way her ears are posed are also supposed to bring a pair of horns to mind. Something DEEPLY wrong with this woman <3333
Lucy Barker/Miserable Woman - Afghan hound
PROBABLY a very uninspired and obvious choice, but...I wanted to draw ''hair ears'' lmao. Sweeney describes her blonde hair as one of the only things he remembers about her, so I wanted a dog breed that naturally had long blonde hair about it. I de-saturated her colors for her ''Miserable Woman'' look to make her look sadder and dirtier.
Anthony and Johanna - Mutt and Golden dalmatian
Yes I KNOW they look like Scamp and Angel okay. The inspiration was intentional but I might've accidentally strayed...TOO close to the source.
Johanna was one of two characters that took me on a bit of a trip. First she was an Afghan just like Lucy, then she was a doe, but I decided to have a little more fun with her. I made her a golden dalmatian, with the ''dalmatian'' coming from her father and the ''Golden'' coming from her mother. I imagined she's a bit like Oddball from 102 Dalmatians, where she's actually ''blank'' aside from the spots on her face and the two on her shoulder (she gets these ones from Todd) The black on her ear is also from Todd. I could have chosen the easy way out and made her look like her mother, but in my own silly way I thought it'd be fucked up if she looked like her father, considering the scene they share near the end of the movie.
Anthony is a sailor, so I gave him a very ''Sea dog'' mutt look. I just kind of...combined a bunch of traits and characteristics that I thought would work for him. You can see a LITTLE of Toughy from LATT in him, only because I liked the eye patch and all the scruff.
Tobias Ragg (aka Toby) - Bat
Toby was a fun one!! Oh, look how adorable he is!!! Since Toby has the final kill of the movie, and he kills Todd at that, I wanted him something small and cute but...potentially very dangerous. I settled on a bat, because they're very cute and they can carry rabies!!
And yes, that's his wig he's carrying. Didn't know how to portray him holding a pie, and I wasn't about to draw him drinking a bottle of gin, so I thought his little wig might be cute. He was honestly one of my favorites to draw <3
Adolfo Pirelli - Ring-tailed lemur
Pirelli is a ring-tailed lemur for two reasons. The first reason, is because since all the other animals are quadrupeds, having a bipedal animal felt more ''exotic'' to go with how he's seen as very special and from out of town. It makes him stick out naturally as someone of note.
The second reason he's a lemur.......is because he's played by Sacha Baron Cohen in 07.
Beadle Bamford and Judge Turpin - Hyena and Vulture
Yeah I'm just gonna come out and say it - Beadle Bamford is one of my fav characters in this movie so I made him a Hyena out of pure favoritism. Having Timothy Spall play him the same year he was Nathaniel in Enchanted was just for me, I think.
Originally, Turpin was a lion. Because...Bamford's a hyena...and they're the villains...sooooooo....yeah. And I WOULD have stuck with that, but....he's described as a vulture in No Place Like London. And while I knew my designs didn't have to adhere to that...I felt like ignoring it would have been stupid on my part. Glad I stuck with it, since...I gotta admit it works REALLY well for him. I've never drawn a vulture before, and it was fun to try something new anyway <3
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sleepy-achilles · 2 months
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Some more FOD headcanons
Yes they've probably been posted before. No I do not check my past ones before posting. So yes I've probably posted the same list a bunch. Soz I guess
Leon spoke with his hands for like 16 years straight. So yes, even now that he speaks with his mouth he still uses his hands, its like muscle memory to him. Yes it's caused him to drop his mic a few times, good thing he's quick enough to catch it. He eventually gets used to holding a mic but still finds himself trying to sign with one hand. (Drew, shawn and alexa find it adorable)
Shawn 100% pouts to get his own way with anyone. That much the kids when they are young adopt the habit too.
Cassie streams herself playing the 2k games but only so she can make a male version of herself and beat the hell out of Leon and John.
John is 100% a mother hen to cassie and Leon. Everyone always jokes about how they are his first children.
From previous point. John always finds himself paying for Leon and cassie and anytime they send him money he ends up sending it back. Or if they forget to pay him, he just doesn't mention it.
Shawn and Leon have fast metabolism whilst taker, John and cassie do not. Yes they hate them. Yes they hate that Shawn and Leon can eat a meal for 10 and not gain a single digit of weight. Whilst Shawn and Leon hate that they struggle to put weight on. Especially when they want to look bigger and more muscular instead of twinks. (Yeah, I went there)
Anytime cassie gets an oc idea. Because yes, shes a fandom girl, or if she wants fan art of her minecraft skin, she hits Leon up. And he does it with no questions asked, because he does not want to know why he's drawing a gay pegaus and earth pony. (Rainbow dash, apple jack. My little pony. I have sisters okay.)
Leon has monochromatic vision. (He sees in black and white) and people often forget this, including himself sometimes. This leads to some very awkward moments between them all. (Cue the, L: Thats the red ball C: Red ball? Bitch that's blue what are you colourblind? J:*glances at them both* both of them: ooohhh C: shit sorry, my bad)
They are a hunting family. Leon does not eat meat. (And I oop-)
Shawn hates Leon's piercings because he uses them as a excuse to not wear a motorbike helmet. He hates takers fuckin brain because it tells him he doesn't need a helmet. (Wear a helmet kids. Fuck it, wear all your gear. Idc if your bike ain't fast, you come off, it's gonna hurt)
Each family member is represented by an animal (thanks to cassie and her fans). (Note, some of them have multiple animals that fit them.) Takers a lion, Shawn's a fox, John's a bear (Leon's fuming about that one), Leon's a Jaguar and Cassies a wolf. (John fits both bear and lion. Shawn fits both fox and cheetah, Leon also fits both cheetah, jaguar and panther. Taker has the qualities of a lion but they say if he had to have the looks of a animal it'd be a raven)
Charlie is still alive and kicking. Despite being born the same year and Leon. Yes he still looks young.
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thisisuno · 2 years
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COLORS ARE A LIE
in which Jung Wooyoung, an art major (struggling to get through art block) stumbles upon a person dressed in only black and white. Despite the monochromatic pallet, the person seems to be more interesting than any color he could think of.
art major!Jung Wooyoung x gn!reader
warnings/genre: fluff, strangers to lovers, really nothing to warn about.
inspired by E ve's song YOKU
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The professor's words went in one ear and out the other. From what Wooyoung could tolerate to hear that day it was something about composition and how people perceive the color they paint. Head down on the wooden desk, he looks towards his classmates and see that they're all taking notes and what not. Don't get him wrong, he loves art and his major, after all he wouldn't be attending a university just for visual arts if he didn't love it. It's just he's going through something all artists dread, art block.
Art block is one of the most infuriating things and it just had to happen to Wooyoung right when the semester started. Tapping his nails against the desk, he put his head down in between his arms and sighed. He was zoning out, lost in his thoughts until his seat-mate and friend, Choi San, nudged him with his elbow.
"Dude, snap out of it, class is over," he kept nudging the boy until Wooyoung lightly slapped him in retaliation.
"Yeah, yeah. I'm going. I know when I'm not wanted," Wooyoung playfully whined as he gathered his bag and supplies. The two walked out of the lecture hall and out of the art building. "San-ie, why don't we stop by Sulbing Myeongdong and get some Bingsu!" the younger perked up as his mouth watered and the dessert.
"Alright but you're paying!" The other replied as they gradually made their way down to the cafe. It wasn't as packed as they thought it would've been considering the amount of college students that go there. The waiter, a nice man and fellow classmate Yeosang led them to a table by the front window.
Wooyoung looked upon the busy streets in a disoriented fashion. It could just be the art block talking but he swore he's seen the same exact scene play out over and over. Out there are people running late to classes, the happy couple that walks by and those professors who need fresh air from time to time. There was nothing new, both to draw and in life.
San talked aimlessly about some of the Bingsu flavors but Wooyoung couldn't help but let it go in one ear and out the other. The jingle of the door chimes pulled the boy out from his thoughts as your eyes met his. Your black turtle neck and slacks mixed with the white from your coat are what first caught his eye. Then they trailed upwards to meet yours who were already staring at him.
It was as if there was a pop or rather eruption somewhere in his mind. A spark, a feeling rushed through his veins as his shining eyes never left your figure. The feeling he soon learned, was inspiration. "Wooyoung, you're doing it again! People are gonna think you're a creep!" San once again tapped the younger's head.
"U-uh yeah but...woah," He couldn't really finish his sentence as he got up and walked over to your table. Your eyes met his once again, and he could feel the spark lighting again.
"Hi! Is there anything I can do for you?" You spoke up first as you motion for the man in front of you to take a seat. He took your offer and sat down, eyeing what you assumed was his friend on the other side of the cafe. You've never seen him in any of your lectures but if anything you know the look of an artist.
"I just wanted to ask-," Wooyoung paused for a moment, "what is the best art tip you could give,". He cursed himself for being extremely blunt but it stopped when he saw the look on your face. Amusement.
"Well, I guess it would make sense considering we are in an art school that you would ask me this," You laughed off the awkwardness and gave him a smile in return. "The best art tip, you say? First of all what's it for? I won't spill these secrets for nothing!" The playfulness in your voice caught him off guard yet not one bit of it was unwelcome. For someone who dressed so monochromatic, you were colorful...in a sense.
"Well, I'm sure you understand what an art block is right? I may or may not be going through one right now," He chuckled as he brushed the back of his neck. A light red was painted on his cheeks, it was cute. The corners of your lip perked up a little as you rested your chin in your palm.
"Well, at least tell me your name first,".
"Oh sh-, it's Wooyoung! Jung Wooyoung,".
"Wooyoung? That's a pretty name. Mine is [Last Name] [Name]," you spoke as you took a spoonful of your Bingsu and placed it in your mouth. After savoring a bit of the flavor, you finally decided it was time to answer Wooyoung's inquiry. "The greatest art tip that I can give to another person is that the art one paints should still look the same with or without colors. Colors are a lie, simple as that," The boy looked puzzled at the statement.
Colors were an incredibly important thing to any art piece. It gave it feeling and it describes the subject, so how could it be a lie?
You figured the reaction on his face was normal. After all, art majors like you and him were taught about the importance of colors from day one. You admit you had the same reaction when you were told this as well.
"Say color is like a house with no foundation. You have the house and it looks beautiful but if it gets wiped away, you wouldn't be able to tell there was anything there in the first place. Don't rely on colors to do all the hard work and build yourself an unstable house. You can build a house with black and white but instead you get foundation. The foundation in this case is the ability to shade the subject with various grays and portray texture albeit the lack of variety," It was a mouthful but it seemed like you got your point across to him.
Wooyoung safe to say was stunned at the explanation. Unlike San's ranting earlier, he took each and every word into careful consideration. He looked downwards for a moment before looking up again at you. There you saw him make a grin that reached his eyes.
"Well, would it be too much to ask if you'd be the subject of my next piece?" Even though you spoke about color being a lie, you quite liked the rosy red on his cheeks. Feigning pondering for a moment, you agreed to his proposal.
Wooyoung realized something that day you came over and helped break his art block. The saying color is a lie not only applied to art but real life as well. Someone in the world could do the most exciting things but would it even matter in the end if they forgot about it the next day? The useless, unimportant things that brought memories were the most important, Wooyoung thought as he gazed as his finished art piece.
It was a world with color, but the subject remained to only be in black and white. The world was flat with no emotions despite the mixtures, but the person, You, seemed to outshine all of it. Just like how you would in Jung Wooyoung's head.
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thegoldenshi-shi · 1 year
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Sunny Simp Anon here!
I had ordered the zine when preorders first started and when I saw that you were in the zine many months later i got very excited!!
I took a pic and sent it to Smooch and shared the rest of the art with them and their friends and we loved it all and I love what you did with Jazz ans Prowl!!
The officiator: Any one object?
Prowl: *silently glaring*
Jazz: *had a cannon* :D
Also they look so good and I want to frame your art on my wall but I cant because it’s in a book but it’s so pretty and I love it and i want to hug it but it’s paper and akskdldkdk
Many conflict here you see
Also personal update myself, I probably didn’t do good on one of my exams today because i forgot there was an exam and I didn’t have my book and it was open book and so like, i didn’t do good but it is what it is
Also I want to hold your sideswipe so much, he is such a pretty boi and when he pops up he overtakes Sunny for a minute and is the star of the show and he knows he’s a pretty boi and will use it
I want to hold him so badly and domestic soft thoughts are my enemy cause I want them to be happy and heal from their pain and they are twins and they know each other the best and they went through hell and back and deserve good things!!!
Let Sunny become a famous artist again, let Sideswipe help with selling his brother’s paintings and also maybe own a lil bar and stuff also Bob being his cute self and get doted on and Sunny also maybe makes vent arts and let out his pain
I do personally headcanon that Sunny makes some vent arts but keeps some of them secret cause he doesn’t want to worry Sides too much with how he feels and it helped to just draw it out
Also me and my friends in the JazzProwl discord server made a lil meme thing into a bug angsty au and then we talked about the future after they mostly heal and it was from dark and angsty and stuff to more fluffy but still some angst(it’s with the Elite trine but i am gonna ask if we wanna include other ships and other lil stories besides the elite trine’s)
Anyways! I hope to be in your inbox again soon but some smaller things jn my life came up that needed my attention so I had to focus on those for a lil bit but i will return
-Sunny Simp Anon💛
Oh! You ordered a Monochromatic zine?
That's so exciting! I just got mine a few days ago~ I'm so happy to hear that you like my piece! I was really nervous about it because it was kinda spoofy compared to the others. It's pretty silly even by my normal standards hehe As far as my digital work goes, Sideswipe has been given so much love lately. It's great that his "pretty boi" status has been recognized. I purposefully designed him to look more friendly and open, so if he's making you think soft domestic things then I have done my job correctly hehe. On the subject of Sunstreaker's art habits, I think all artists make vent pieces at some point, writers and other creative mediums too (I know I do). So Sunny does probably have some pieces squirreled away here and there, I agree. I'm glad you're having fun on the JazzProwl server, and hope you get through whatever requires your attention now.
Don't rush through anything, I will still be here when you get done hehe.
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gaylittlewizardcat · 2 years
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✨Intro post✨ plz read :]
Hi! This is my Cats the musical sideblog! My main is @absolutehumandisaster
My name is Nate, I also go by Star, I use mainly she/her but also starself and he/him pronouns and I’m an adult
Some general info about my blog, what I make, what I would prefer not to see, my tag navigation system (that I’m very proud of) and some other stuff under the cut :3
This blog is almost entirely sfw, the worst you’ll see is a dirty joke and they’re few and far between
Feel free to use any of my edits/gifs as long as you credit me (and the person the footage is from when applicable)
When it comes to my original art you’re always (unless otherwise specified) allowed to save/screenshot it and send it to friends in private messages. With permission and crediting me you may use it as a header/pfp, in a collage/edit etc. Please never repost my art and under no circumstance feed any of the things I make into any sort of AI.
I really like making gifs, my ask box is open so feel free to make requests! I’m also open to headcanon asks and just general chatting about Cats
It’s totally cool and will probably make my day if you scroll back and interact with a bunch of my old posts (though spam liking (without reblogging anything) is not all that appreciated). Also, I’m okay with getting asks about anything in the jellicle asks tag, no matter how far back in time they’re from
Speaking of asks: If you’ve ever sent me an ask I haven’t replied to despite it being sent really long ago, there’s a 97% chance I feel like I don’t have a good response for it (or that the ask has a lot of potential but brain isn’t braining) so I wait for inspiration to strike, and then I felt like I need to have an even better response for it cause it had taken so long. I love getting asks and I’m sorry I’m so bad at answering them </3
I’m a multimedia artist, I like drawing, writing, crafts, cosplay, making edits and a lot of other stuff (but I don’t actually create as much as I wish I did)
Also I have three rp side blogs @quaxo-mistoffelees , @cettie-etcetera and @jellicle-electra they’re all very much WIPs and I don’t know what I’m doing but the best way to learn is to do so weeeeeee
While I’m a firm believer that Cats doesn’t have a solid canon and that you can have whichever headcanons you want, I’d like to ask that posts tagged with “monochromatic siblings” aren’t tagged with “mistoria” or anything similar. If you ship them that’s great, but it makes me a bit uncomfortable
Don’t bash the 2019 movie in replies, especially not if the post has nothing to do with it. Yeah it has some issues but most of the hate it got was bandwagoning and you know it. Get a hobby.
I’m not gonna put a DNI other than “bigots fuck off” but jsyk: for my own sanity I try to stay away from discourse of any kind, so if you actively post about it (no matter which “side” you’re on) I’m probably gonna block you if you interact
My tag master post
My AO3
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pensbridgertons · 28 days
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Hi!
Can you please do a tutorial on how you made this gifset (https://www.tumblr.com/pensbridgertons/729348005153685504/swanfire-appreciation-week-2023-day-7-free?source=share)?
Your gifs are gorgeous!
hello!! thank u sm!! <3
so im just gonna explain my process for the two types of gifs in the set (all of this done with PS CS6) (also i'm bad explaining things so bear with me pls <3)
for the lyric gifs (which were inspired by this gifset):
i started by making up a template for they layout that ended up looking like this
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i got the play bar/song title template from here, and then just used the same font to add the "playing from playlist" text (and then also for when i filled in the lyric text). i used the rectangle shape tool to draw a square the size i wanted for the album cover spot (just as a place marker for where the gif would go), and used a rounded rectangle shape tool make the lyrics box, and for the color fill i used a light grey to dark grey gradient. in terms of determining the look, i was very much going off of the set i was inspired by and trying to recreate that look.
for making the gif, i started with my base bg gif shot. i used a gradient map to make it a solid color, applied my other brightness/contrast/etc adjustments, and converted it to work in timeline (i started in frames bc thats what i normally work in), and then applied noise (monochromatic, 5%) and gaussian blur (radius 0.8). i then made a new layer that i colored to match the blue or green of the gif i was working on, and lowered the transparency until the gif looked a little more flat/solid colored but you could still see the gif thru it (ended up being 46% opacity). i then copied the template over to the doc on top of the gif. this is what my doc looks like so far:
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(the lyrics bar is the rectangle on the left, music player is everything a part of the play bar/text on the right)
the album cover gif was next, and for that i just made a second gif (either just one shot or two blended together depending on the gif), cropped it into a square, and resized it to fit the square template i had made. i then copied that gif file to the main gif doc, and moved it over the spot my template marked off and then hid the square border. after that, all thats left is adding the lyrics on top of the rectangle and changing the music player text to match the song (in the ref image above i have already changed it). for the lyrics, i chose certain lines i wanted to highlight and changed their color to match the color of the rest of the gif. and thats it!
for the song list gifs:
i started by making three different gifs that i was going to transition between, making each one a different color (blue, green, or b/w). for the transition, i followed this tutorial (just gonna share that instead of explaining it myself, they do a much better job than i would <3).
then for the song list, i used the same rectangle i had made for the lyrics gif. in order to make it into a song list like a playlist queue, i used the line tool to draw lines across the rectangle (i made their color light grey to make them subtle), spaced them out to the distance i thought looked right for each song spot and then copied those lines along the rest of the rectangle, making sure they stayed evenly spaced. and because i was working in frames, its important to make sure that all the shapes have unify visibility and unify layer position turned on so they are present the whole gif as it plays. i then filled in the songs i wanted to list in the spaces between the lines, using the same font as before.
and then finally, to go along with the transition, i included a lighter grey rectangle to make it look like the song was being selected. for this i made a rectangle the size of one of the song slots, positioned the layer under the text, and made it a lighter grey so it looked like the song was highlighted. to make it change between songs, bc i was working in frames, i made three copies of the rectangle layer, one for each song, and made them all invisible. then, i selected the frames i wanted the first rectangle to be visible on and turned its visibility back on. i wanted it to look like the selection was what caused the transition bc it was switching to a new song, so i did some overlap with when the rectangle changes. basically, i have gif 1 2 and 3, and so for the highlighted song for gif 3, i selected the last three frames of gif 2 (bc it came before gif 3 in the loop) as well as all of the frames of gif 3 excluding the last four (leaving one frame blank, and then the last three being a part of the next one) and turned on the visibility for the rectangle, and then repeated this for the other two rectangles/gifs.
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for the playlist cover gif, i just did a regular gif making/coloring process, added the text, and used a film grain gif overlay over the top (i dont have the video source anymore, but you should be able to find some just by searching film grain overlay).
and that should be it! hopefully this is helpful to you!! i know this is kind of wordy/rambly so if you want anything cleared up/explained better feel free to let me know <3
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karpyart · 2 years
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Deku and his spirit animal 💚
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hawks-supremacy · 2 years
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Hellooo a request for jujutsu kaisen❤️
How would the characters (doesn’t matter which ones I love them all) react to the reader who is a really talented artist and they paint art that’s in the abstract art category •And they also do 3D art similar to the Chinese artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
If the reader could be female that would be great but you can decide if you can fill this out I would be so grateful 😫🙏❤️🤍
a/n: this was fun to do! sorry it took so long. i didn't specify what kind of art was being done but i did cover a few different bases with them. hope you like it!
Itadori Yuji
Bless his heart, he tries to understand art he really does and he thinks it’s very nice to look at, but as he hears everyone around him talk about the meaning behind it he gets confused.
He knows you worked really hard and spent months working on one piece but he didn’t realize there was supposed to be a deeper meaning behind it, but that explains your soft chuckle and the pat on his back when he proudly stated that “it was pretty” when you showed him the finished art piece.
He prefers your happier pieces to your sad ones. He believes you paint and create what you're feeling, and while that’s true some of the time you’ll have to reassure him that just because a painting or piece looks sad doesn’t mean you are sad.
Doesn’t like that your art takes up a lot of your time, he’s a needy baby and sometimes you’ll spend days painting. So you offer to have him paint with you, he’s constantly asking you what different art tools and mediums are but you enjoy painting with him; despite his constant asking of questions, you find it peaceful.
“Why is yours drying so fast? Mine’s taking forever to dry”
I told you not to use oil paints Yuji, you’re too impatient for it. I’m using acrylics so it dries faster and I can move on to the next layer”
“That’s not fair”
Fushiguro Megumi
Arguably less confused by the art pieces, still didn’t completely get what you were going for, but will converse with others about the piece if needed and give his thoughts on your work.
He’ll give you his honest feedback on the pieces when you show them to him and he’s brutally honest. Will flat out tell you if he does or does not like a piece and why.
“There’s too much blue”
“‘Gumi it’s a monochromatic piece, it’s supposed to be all blue”
“I’m just saying it’s too much blue for me, could use some green or something”
He won’t paint with you but he’ll sit in the room with you while you paint so you have company. You try to bounce ideas off of him and he just looks at you like “Do what you want I have no opinion”
He does think that watching you paint is peaceful, he thinks it’s interesting watching you create something and seeing it come together as you slowly build up your piece and the layers.
Gojo Satoru
“Hey you’re an artist, draw me” type beat.
Just kidding, not really. He’s your number one supporter and will 100% fight someone at an art showing if they say they don’t like or understand your piece.
“It’s okay, not really anything special about it”
Satoru from across the room “What’d you say?! Say it again, I dare you buddy!”
“Satoru calm down, you need to stop yelling before I get thrown out of my own showing.”
“No I don’t care he said he didn’t like it”
“Art is subjective ‘Toru, not everyone’s gonna like it.”
He’s still going to be trying to fight the person as you attempt to remove him from the situation.
He gives only positive feedback, no negative feedback from this guy. “Looks great babe, this is your best one yet!”
“Satoru you can’t say that about every single one.”
“Why not? You improve every time”
He will paint with you and then try and ask people who's better, gets offended when they choose yours.
Yaga Masamichi
He’s also an artist, I mean come on he makes the little dolls so of course he’s going to understand your art pieces the best. Does say it’d be better if they came to life like him though *cough cough*
Loves watching you make new pieces or making new pieces together. Not necessarily making one together (not that you’d fight him on it) but working in the same space as you work on your separate pieces.
“Let me put cursed energy into just one of these”
“No Masa’ you can’t bring my art pieces to life, they have to go on display next week”
“They can be the servers!”
“No Masa!”
Will pout so you let him bring one to life and that’s it.
He puts a waiter outfit on it and gives it a platter of drinks. You question why he had that on hand and he changes the subject.
He loves talking with you about the meaning behind art pieces and what different people might interpret when they look at it. Also loves conversing with people at your exhibits and why their opinion on the piece is wrong and it’s not what you intended.
Much like Gojo, gets a little bit too defensive about your art.
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davidmann95 · 3 years
Note
Sooo… Superman and the Authority?
magnus-king123 asked: Your thoughts on Superman & the authority Give it to me...lol
Anonymous asked: Seeing Bezos take his little trip into space the same day Morrison puts out a Superman comic that touches on how far we’ve fallen from the days when we dreamed of utopian futures where everyone explored the stars was a big gut punch. Not used to Superman being topical in that way.
Anonymous asked: What'd you think of Superman and the Authority#1?
This is far beyond what I can fit in the normal weekly reviews, so taking this as my notes on the first six pages, with this and this as my major lead-in thoughts:
* Janin's such a perfect fit for Morrison - the scale, the power, the facial expressions selling the character work, the screwing around with the panel formatting as necessary to sell the effect, the numinous sense of things going on larger than you can fully perceive amidst the beauty and chaos. It's a shame he wasn't around 25 years ago to draw JLA, but I'll take him going with Morrison onto other future projects.
* His intro action sequence is such a great demonstration of why Black actually does have something to offer, and also how he's such a dumbass desperately needing Superman to save him from himself.
* While Jordie Bellaire didn't legit go with an entirely monochromatic palate the way early previews suggested, it's still an effect frequently and excellently deployed here. And glad to see Steve Wands carry into this from Blackstars since there's such an obvious carryover from its work with Superman.
* "Gentlemen. Ladies. Others." Great both because of the obvious - hey, Superman's nodding at me! - and because it's a phrasing that reinforces that this take on him (and let's be real Morrison) is old as hell.
* I'm mostly past caring about whether this is an alt-Earth Superman until it becomes indisputable one way or another, this and Action both rule so what does it really matter? But while there are still a couple signs in play suggesting some kind of division (the Action Comics #1036 cover, Midnighter up to time-travel shenanigans) the "lost in time" quote clearly thrown in after the fact to explain how he could have met Kennedy outside of 5G that wouldn't be necessary for an Elseworlds, the assorted gestures towards Superman's current status quo, the Kingdom Come symbol appearing in Action, and that Morrison would have had to completely rewrite the ending if this wasn't supposed to be 'the' version of Clark Kent going forward as was the intent when they first planned it all say to me that no, no fooling around, this is our guy going forward one way or another.
* Janin and Bellaire making the first version of the crystal Fortress ever that actually looks as cool as you want it to.
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Anonymous asked: I like that Superman and The Authority is basically the anti-All-Star; instead of the laid back, immortal Superman who is supercharged, we have a stressed, ageing Superman whose tremendous powers are fading. The former will always be there to save us, but the latter is running out of time and needs to pull off a Hail Mary. Also, he mentions in his monologue to Black that he was "lost in time" when he met JFK, so maybe he is the main continuity Clark. Or he's the t-shirt Supes from Sideways.
* You're absolutely right - the power reversal is obvious and the ticking clock in play seemingly isn't for his own survival but everyone around him as he wakes up and realizes all the old icons grew complacent with the gains they'd made and he's not leaving behind the world he meant to. Both, however, are built on the idea of preparing the world to not need them anymore - it'll still have a Superman in his son, but that'll only work because of the others he empowers and inspires. The question is what happens to Clark if he's not going to live in the sun for 83000 years.
* Clark's 'exercise' here does more to sell me on the idea of Old Man Superman as a cool idea than however many decades of Earth 2 stuff.
* Intergang being noted alongside Darkseid and Doomsday speaks to how much Kirby informed Morrison's conception of Superman.
* This isn't exactly the most progressive in its disability politics but at least it makes clear Black's being a piece of shit about it.
* It's startling how much Clark can get away with saying stuff in here you'd never expect to come out of Superman's mouth. "I made an executive decision" "Privacy, really...?" "You have nowhere to go, Black. Nothing to live for." "There are few people in my life who I instinctively and viscerally dislike, and you've always been one of them." It only works because there's zero aggression behind it, he's just past the point of niceties and being totally frank while making clear none of these assessments preclude that he cares and is going to unconditionally do the right thing every time. He is absolutely, per Morrison, humanity's dad picking us up when we're too drunk to drive ourselves home.
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* The story doesn't put a big flashing light over it, but it's not even a little bit subtle having the material threat of the issue be a ticking timebomb left by the carelessness and hubris of generations past.
* Manchester keeps trying to poke the bear and prove his hot takes about Superman and it's just not working. The front he put up under Kelley is gone after decades of defeats, and as Morrison understands what actually conceptually works about him as a rival to Superman underneath the aging nerd paranoia he's exposed as what he absolutely would be in 2021: a dude with a horrific terminal case of Twitter brainworms. I was PANICKED when I heard there was an 'offensive term' joke in this, I was braced for Morrison at their well-meaning worst, but it's such a goddamn perfect encapsulation of a very specific breed of Twitter leftist who uses their politics first and foremost as a cudgel and justification to label their abrasive, judgmental shittiness as self-righteousness (plus it's a killer payoff to a joke from way back in his original appearance). Cannot believe they pulled that off when they're so very, very open about basically not knowing how the internet works.
* @charlottefinn: Manchester Black using his telekinetic powers to force someone he hates to fave a problematic tweet so that he can screenshot it and start a dogpile
@intergalactic-zoo: “Once they cancel Bibbo, Superman won’t be *anyone’s* fav’rit anymore!”
* Friend noted this issue had to be fully the conversation because the whole premise stands on the house of cards of these two somehow working together, and with three 'silent' inset panels the creative team pulls off that turning point.
* So much of this feels on the surface like Morrison bringing back the All-Star vibes with Clark, but when he drops a "That's all you got?" in a brawl you realize what's underlining that bluntness and confidence in the face of failure is that deep down this is still the Action guy too. This dude ain't gonna get wrecked in his Fortress while the other guy chuckles about him being A SOFT WEE SCIENTIST'S SON!
* Bringing up Jor-El made me realize that Morrison already spelled out that this is the final threat to Superman, what he faces at the end of the road:
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"Now it's your turn, Superman."
* A l'il Superman 2000/All-Star reference with the Phantom Zone map!
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* There's so much intertextuality going on here even by Morrison standards - Change or Die with the old hero putting together a team of morally nebulous folks out to 'fix' everything, Flex Mentallo with the muscleman trying to redeem the punk, Doomsday Clock with the fate of the world hinging on whether Superman can get through to a meta stand-in for an idea of 'modern' comics cynicism, DKR and New Frontier and Kingdom Come and Multiversity and Seven Soldiers and What's So Funny and All-Star and Action and the last 5 years of monthly Superman comics and Authority and probably Jupiter's Legacy and Tom Strong - but none of that's needed. You could go in with the baseline pop cultural understanding of the character and not care about any of the inside baseball shit and get that this is a story about a leader of a generation that let down the people they made all their grand promises to as inertia and day-to-day demands and complacency let him be satisfied with the accomplishments they'd made long ago, looking at a new era and seeing the ways its own activists are dropping the ball. The only thing that fundamentally matters in a "you have to accept you're reading a superhero story" sense is that because he's Superman he's willing to own up to it and listen to people who might know better about some things and try to set things right while he and those who'll take his place still have a chance. And yes, the oldster looking back on their legacy with a skeptical eye and hoping for better from the next generation, hoping most of all that their little heir apparent can fulfill the promise inside of him instead of being a provocating little shitkicker, is obviously also autobiographical.
* The overlaying Kennedy reprisal is such a great visual of a sudden intrusive thought.
* The Kryptonite secret is the obvious "This is going to matter!" moment, but "He lied about his son" is a bit that doesn't connect to anything going on right now so maybe that's important here too? More significantly, the Justice League can't actually be the villains here but that Ultra-Humanite's crew are in an Earth-orbiting satellite makes pretty clear what's up.
* I've said before that between Superman, OMAC, and a New Gods-affiliated speedster this was going to use all of Morrison's favorite things. King Arthur playing a role isn't exactly dissuading me.
* Love the idea that all the antiheroes have their own community in the same way as the capes and tights crew. They definitely all privately think the rest are posers though and that they alone are Garth Ennis Punisher in a mob of Garth Ennis Wolverines.
* Manchester's fallen so far he's gone from trying to convince Superman to kill to convince him to dunk on people for their bad takes and Clark just doesn't get it. Official prediction of dialogue for upcoming issues:
"According to these bloody Fortress scans, the only thing that can restore your powers is an unfiltered hit of dopamine. Don't worry, Doctor Black has a few ideas."
"Hmm. Maybe I'll plant a nice tree?"
"...fuck you."
* Ok I already talked about how great the Fortress looks in here but LOVE this library.
* A pair of pages this seems like the right spot to discuss from Black's original appearance that underlines both his and Superman's inadequacies up to this point:
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Responding to the problem of "the government and penal system are hopelessly corrupt" neither of them has any actual notion of what to do about it in spite of their respective posturing beyond how to handle individual outside actors - each is in their own way every bit as small-minded and reactionary as the other. Clark's coming around though, and he's holding out hope for the other guy.
* Superman: Have a lovely mineral water :) proper hydration is important :)
Manchester Black: *Is a dude who can get so mad he vomits and passes out. At water.*
* That last page is the one to beat for the year, and does more to put over the idea of this as an Authority book than that Midnighter and Apollo are literally going to show up. It also feels like Morrison tacitly acknowledging all the ways the premise could go or at least be received wrong - from Superman saying 'enough is enough' to who he's bringing into the fold to go about it - in the most beautifully on-the-nose fashion imaginable. Maybe they'll save us all! Or maybe they'll drown us in their vomit.
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mammons-tax-returns · 4 years
Note
How would the brothers react to a very punk goth Mc like platforms and all black and just the whole shebang he’s very nice but also will throw hands (there’s not enough male Mc your doing the good work my dude)
BROTHERS REACTING TO A GOTH/PUNK MC
Perfect way to start off the new blog !! Thank you for requesting, hope this is what you had in mind <3 (and that it’s not too apparent that i’m not super well versed in punk or goth culture ACK)
I hope that you guys don’t mind some being shorter than others, I’m still getting a hang of personalities!
⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰
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Lucifer is probably one of the ones that’s into the style from the very beginning.
As soon as he sees MC, his interest is clearly shown on his face.
Sometimes, he’ll drop compliments on his fashion. Depending on his reponses, he’ll start getting more apparent with just how much he enjoys seeing his outfit everyday.
GIFTS!! He’s not mammon level of stacks upon stacks of gift wrapped boxes, but he’ll certainly stop by your room every once in a while with a new accessory he saw while shopping.
MC will probably notice that he is especially keen on chokers :).
Stares discreetly, but consistently. When Lucifer invites him to listen to music in his room, he waits until MC is occupied with something like a book or the music. Then sneaks glances at him to see how his clothing moves every time he reaches over for something, or how the necklace he bought the other day glints in the light radiating off of the fireplace.
He knows that MC is nice, and grows increasingly more and more worried for his sake because of that. The exchange program is important, but his treasure perpetually adorned in black garbs is significantly more prominent in his concerns.
So when he sees MC readily defending himself against some low level demon with no hesitation? Holy fuck. He starts to panic, but there’s nothing surpressing his respect for him, as it only grows stronger.
Although, it becomes very apparent that he’d have to do something about all of his brothers’ staring at MC.
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Mammon is so into it. Like... So into it.
We all know and love that our tsundere boy has a problem with getting embarrassed, but how could he NOT get flustered everytime he’s face to face with an alternative KING
At first, he actually tries to tell MC how much he appreciates his aesthetic, but fails every time. Stuttering is a difficult thing to overcome when you can barely breathe out of embarrassment.
When he finally brings himself to actually get a compliment out, it’s accompanied with his signature bashful look. Downcast gaze and shifting posture and everything.
Upon recieving a positive response to his words, he takes it as a sign that he should start doing it more often. And so... That’s exactly what he does!
Compliments upon compliments, expensive outfits and accessories finding their way into his room, MC gets it all.
He ADORES the nice personality. So really. This MC is one of the people that Mammon can’t help but get along with. Nice, can throw hands, AND IS FASHIONABLE? Now you’re speaking his language.
They definitely get called a model power couple, even if MC isn’t a model.
Will definitely mention the idea of MC doing a photoshoot with him for work, but won’t press further if he says he’s not comfortable with it.
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Levi geeks out so badly
So yeah, his initial interest in MC is kickstarted by his fashion reminding him of a badass video game character, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate him for who he is!!
He actually doesn’t know whether to be sad that he doesn’t have the same amount of fashion sense or to be happy that he has MC as his best friend that does.
But after a bit of positive affirmation from MC, he’ll surely settle with the latter. (and also hope for them to become more than best friends :). )
He finds himself subconsciously posting about MC in his socials. Normally it’s filled with “Lucifer just did (blank)” but now, it’s ALL about MC. Nothing else. MC fan account.
We know that Levi draws, and so I have no doubts that he would be drawing every outfit he sees MC in.
At first, he’s only drawing faceless figures in the clothes, probably adding his own personal flair. But as time progresses and Levi gets closer to him, he starts subconsciously conpleting the figure’s appearance (hair, face, stature, etc). And before he knows it, half of his pages are filled with doodles of MC.
But if he were to ever find out that MC saw his art, RIP Leviathan 2020
And who’s to say he’s not drawing him in... Risqué outfits.
But if MC says that he doesn’t mind getting drawn, then Levi will activate cute fanboy mode again.
He’ll ask him to model outfits for him as he draws, sometimes in cosplay.
MC would just be chillin’ with him in his room, and when Levi finally looks up from his tv after finishing an anime, he’ll sometimes gasp and immediately say, “Stay right there, I HAVE to draw this!”
Although drawing wasn’t and will likely never be his favorite thing to do in comparison to video games/anime, it gives him an excuse to stare at his best friend with minimal blushing.
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Satan is good at hiding his appreciation for MC’s outfits. At least, he’s good at it to everyone BUT MC.
If anyone asks, he’s indifferent about MC and his dashing looks and fashion.
But as soon as MC confronts him... Oh boy.
Red-faced, he’ll compliment his clothing on occasion, then wave it off as “something everyone does”. Which is true, but we know that it’s more than just that.
Similarly to Lucifer, he finds himself staring at him secretly. Except, I like to think that he’s less careful about it. Often MC will look up to meet his eyes, before he ducks his head back into his book, acting nonchalant.
Not a single person can convince me that he hasn’t found a stray black cat and discreetly named it after MC.
He wouldn’t hide the fact, but instead would actually bring it up at the right time. Ex: Right before some dramantic moment like before proclaiming how much MC means to him. Both as the cat and human.
The cat’s collars are decorated similarly to the clothing that MC wears! Satan is a diligent worker (especially when putting lucifer through immense stress) and a lover of arts, so he’s pays attention to little details like that.
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This is Asmo we’re talking about.
He ADORES the aesthetic.
It’s not something that he himself would wear, but damn is it appealing to the eye.
Once you get him started on all the things he’d do if given the chance to dress MC up in whatever he wanted, you’ll never hear the end of it.
(^ especially when he starts talking about the undressing)
He loves a monochromatic color pallet, but every once in a while he’ll push for a pop of color in MC’s outfit for the day.
If MC wears minimal/no makeup, Asmo will constantly ask if he can use his face as a canvas for makeup experimentation while he rants about his nail tech.
Asmo’s favorite activity is going through MC’s closet. He gets to not only try things on, but he also gets to know what he has to work with when choosing MC’s outfits for their days out together.
Knows the perfect boutiques to bring him to
“You know, the color black really accentuates your figure... And if you look this good with it on, I wonder how great you look with it off~”
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Beel isn’t interested in fashion or anything related to it. He isn’t picky about the presentation of things (namely; food.)
So he wouldn’t be immediately enticed upon first meeting MC.
But that is not to say that he doesn’t find him VERY pleasing to the eye.
Our sweet boy is not afraid to express his love for those boots!! For the destressed fabrics!! He hangs around him often just so he can sit and ogle at how cool MC looks!! All the damn time!!
Asks MC to come with him to work out just so he could have some motivation by seeing him. And his GAMES. He’s gonna love to see him cheering him on in the stands.
Beel would admit that he himself couldn’t bring himself to care so much about his clothes or ‘aesthetic’ , and couldn’t imagine having such a consistent style.
^ And because of that! He’s dying to see what he looks like in other styles. Of course, if he doesn’t want to change out of the usual attire, just seeing him wearing beel’s huge ass jacket is enough.
Wouldn’t care to buy clothing items for him, but will most certainly stop by devildom’s no. 1 bakery, grab some sweets with that signature gothic devildom appearance and bring it back to the House of Lamentation for him. (Given that he didn’t already eat them.)
In comparison to his personality, MC’s closet isn’t very important.
Beel loves his kind nature! But he will always be there to defend him in any sort of risky situation, especially when any low level demons would like to try and take advantage of MC’s niceness.
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Belphie is taken aback the first time he sees him. In the best way possible.
It’s like he just knows that he’s going to be interesting to be with just by seeing his clothing style
He actually probably assumed that MC would be very different from what he’s really like. (Like how people will assume that everyone who wears dark colors often are always sad)
But both to his surprise and not, MC is nothing but kind to him! And he’s kinda like 😳. Damn. Alright. I can get down to this.
Fashion isn’t his expertise, so he isn’t as forward with compliments. It’s mostly, “As long as I’m comfortable when I lay on you, the clothes are fine. Right?”
“I had a dream about you last night... It was like you were some prince clad in black chain mail armor... I suppose we couldn’t make that a reality though, huh? You can be my prince in band tees and ripped jeans.”
The only reason he starts dressing similarly to MC is because of how many times he’ll fall asleep beside him. He knows MC will probably offer one of his jackets or extra shirts, and that he’ll likely get to keep it. (He gives it back eventually, it’s just nice sentiment.)
It’s also kind of entertaining to see some of his brothers go ballistic in response to seeing him adorned in MC’s signature clothes.
798 notes · View notes
ot3 · 4 years
Note
your last post made me think about how I loooove how you use color in your art, it's so vibrant and full of life and movement and expression! I was wondering if you had any advice on how to do color studies? perhaps doing drawings with limited palettes? or anything similar?
First things first, thank you, I really do appreciate comments like these! this post now also has a follow up for finish limited palette pieces
I'm obviously very fond of limited palette art and color studies/color thumbnailing are great ways to get that done. When people think limited palette there's often the association of unrealistic and fantastical color palettes, but learning to limit your color use absolutely applies to semirealism and just builds stronger color theory in general. I was planning to talk about limited palettes in more realistic color use in this post, but this already ended up way too long. If that's something people want to hear about I can talk about it later.
Color theory basics crash-course! I'm sure almost anyone who has colored anything is familiar with this, so I'll be SUPER brief, but I want everyone to be on the same page for this. Color has three qualities you need to take into account: Hue, saturation, and brightness. Hue is what we think of as the 'color'. Saturation is the vibrancy of this color; how bold or dull it is. Brightness is how light or dark the color is. Here's this all labeled on a color picker I stole from google.
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As a rule of thumb, things that look good in color should look good in grayscale. Having a strong range of values (brightness) makes for a strong image. Keep this in mind when you're picking colors – knowing what areas need to be light and what areas need to be dark before you start coloring will make your life easier. I'm going to teach you when and how to break this rule later, but for now let's just talk about picking a palette. I've found five to seven different colors to be a really nice sweet spot for working with limited palettes.
There are three main types of color palettes ill work with and ill provide examples each of them. I expect you to all politely refrain commenting on the amount of homestuck fanart that's here.
Monochromatic, where the piece is all within one color family with slight variations in hue, and larger variations in brightness and saturation
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Accent, which is essentially the same as a monochromatic type with the addition of a strong, contrasting secondary color in one or two variants. Normally the accent color is lighter and serves as a highlight. This is not any kind of a hard rule, but is instead just what I like.
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Split. There are two (or more) main colors at play, each with a couple of different shades.
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Cool. Now lets see how we'd go about making one of these palettes.
 I'm grabbing an inconsequential sketch i've already got and we're gonna slap some color on it. Let's start monochromatic – I've gone and just tossed six pretty random shades of green on it, picking what goes where based on what I want to be light and what I want to be darker. 
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Keep in mind, by monochromatic, I don't mean just picking one color and making it lighter or darker! Adjust your hue within the same color family – some of these are very blue, definitely more blue than green, and some are much warmer and yellower. Play around. In this stage I like to have every color on a distinct layer, so I can just recolor the entire layer at once as I tweak the palette.
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 On the right, I have each color lined up in order of lightest to darkest just so I can get a sense of what I'm working with. Lets go ahead and call this one thumbnail. Now I'm gonna group the layers, duplicate them, and flatten the copy. I'll shrink it down and shove it off to the side so I can compare it to the other ones I make later.
Okay, I did a few more almost completely arbitrary monochromatic palettes. Here they are compared with their grayscale counterparts. 
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All of them have the same number of colors, and lights stay lights, darks stay dark, midtones stay mid consistent between all of them, but the range of values is different between them all. The difference in light or dark between each tone is different and it gives a different mood that you can see even in black and white. None of them is more 'correct' than any other, and it's all about establishing the tone and atmosphere you want. Experimentation is key.
Now lets try making this a complimentary palette. With a strong accent color, your accent should be placed at areas of importance. People are naturally drawn to contrast and when using an accent color in a piece it'll make that area stick out, so make sure you're placing your colors with intent. For this I went back to that first set of greens I had because it was my favorite. Since this palette is over all very dark, I am going to make my accent the lightest color, because that'll stand out more. In a lighter palette, try making your accent the darkest color. Once again I must stress these are not hard rules – there are very few hard rules in art at all – but these are very useful tips for getting emphasis in the right place. This is just an example piece so I'm not being huuugely thoughtful with how I'm placing the color. 
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Here's the same image but with the lightest green just swapped out for a far more vibrant accent of yellow. Looks pretty terrible. I don't want all of the papers and blinds to seem so prominent. So let's scrap this and try a different approach. We're gonna instead add our accent as a sixth color to our palette.
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By adding another color, I've added another level of detail. Figuring out how to manage detail isn't just dependent on how many colors you have, but this is already going to be ridiculously long so I'll spare you that spiel. This is another one of those things I'll talk about more later if people want to hear my #thots. Using the new yellow accent, I emphasized the eyes, the mug, and added some interior detailing to the objects on the table. I also decided to place yellow in some of the windows of the outside buildings, to add a bit more interest in that area, and to justify giving yellow back lighting to our little goblin lad here, which makes him stand out nicely.
A split palette makes things a whole lot more complicated. Now that you're gonna be working with two different base colors you don't just only have to worry about which one is lighter or darker, you have to worry about how the hues look next to each other. Lets work with an orange on top of our original green here. I picked two of the greens and replaced the darker one with a darker orange, and the lighter one with a lighter orange. Now our palette is six colors split 50/50 between orange+yellow, and green. 
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But now something interesting is happening. Let's take a look. If you're particularly keen eyed, you might have noticed that there's a third set of colors here, using a greyish brown in place of the oranges. What's up with that?
Well, what's up with that is, they are orange. The palette on the far right is what happens if, instead of choosing my own oranges, I simply hue-shifted the bluegreens until they were technically orange in hue. 
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The oranges I chose just based on how they looked without actually checking the value and saturation of actually changed the value hierarchy of the whole piece. The table, instead of being in between the objects stacked upon it in terms of brightness, is lighter than either. This isnt bad at all – there's absolutely nothing wrong here. It's just important to be aware of things like this! This is why I said a split palette is the most complicated of the three I'm talking about here – in many occasions, the hue hierarchy can top the value hierarchy. Keep that in mind for slightly later.
I think split palettes work really well for comics, and I like to make my comics with split palettes. Whereas with a single illustration, you can just putz around with your color thumbnails until you get something good, for a comic you're locked into your palette once you've done the first page. Unless you're some sort of insanely meticulous person, in which case I envy you, you probably don't have every single page of your comic blocked out with respective values and can't apply your palette to the whole thing at once to test it. This means you'll need a palette that's pretty versatile. Having a split palette where one of the hue sets is lighter than the other overall allows you to decide whether you're going to create an overall light panel with dark accents, or vice versa. I'm gonna compare two palettes I'm using for comics to make this point. 
Here's a sampling of the comic pages in full color, at 0% saturation, and adjusted for grayscale respectively. You'll notice a slight difference between the desaturated colors and the grayscale colors – grayscale seems to hold truer to the full color version, doesn't it?
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Now, here are the palettes themselves, and some grids showing the relationship between every pair of colors. When you don't know exactly what you're going to be using any given palette for, the relationship between any two colors becomes more important than ever. The bottom palette is split three ways, red yellow and blue each with a light and a dark, and then a completely neutral dark gray color. I'm using it for a long ongoing ace attorney comic I'm drawing. The top one has 4 shades of blue that go from darker and cooler to lighter and warmer, then 3 shades of orange that get yellower as they get lighter. Underneath is just the values – you'll notice that the top palette has a larger value range, with its lightest color being lighter than that of the bottom palette, and it's mid tones spaced further apart. 
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What you'll also notice about the bottom palette is that instead of the reds being lighter than the blues and darker than the yellows, the value alternates dark red dark yellow light red light yellow. Take a look at the color grids. You'll notice that for the most part, every color in the palette on the right looks good with every other color. That's not nearly as true for the palette on the left. The light blue has a weird vibration where it meets either of the reds, and a few of the pairings just aren't particularly pleasant. Honestly, from any objective ideas of color theory, this palette kind of sucks shit. Lets make some adjustments to it.
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I've changed the dark yellow and light red hues so now the light red is slightly darker than the dark yellow. That's the palette that's on top now. Looks better, doesn't it? But so now the question becomes why am I using a palette that looks awkward, disharmonious, and visually strained when I know exactly how to fix it? The simple answer is because I wanted a color palette that's awkward. I wanted that visual strain. I have trouble working on comics and general, especially anything as long as this one, and I wanted a color palette that already meant things would come out looking a little bit wonky, so I wouldn't be as concerned with nitpicking all the details and making everything pretty. I think the sort of visual upset also fits the tone I'm keeping with a lot of the comic.
Remember earlier when I said I'd talk about breaking the rule of stuff looking good in gray scale and in color? That's now. Take a look at this image. 
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Which of the three colors is darker: the red, blue, or yellow? The stupid truth of it is that there's not really a proper way to tell. All three are technically the same 'brightness' but our brain tells us that the blue is the darkest, and the yellow is the lightest. Why do our brains do this? Let’s make em gray now.
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On the bottom you can see what the colors look like when they are set to 0% saturation; as you'd expect it's a homogeneous gray blob. So then what the fuck is going on with the grayscale one? The grayscale one is closer to the way our brains interpret the colors, but we know this to be an improper rendering of their respective values. Which is the correct version, then – the grayscale or the desaturation? Luckily, we're using a computer, so we can have photoshop tell us the exact balance of hue, saturation, and brightness of any given pixel. Let's take a look now.
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Wait, huh? We can plainly see that all three of the colors are at 49% brightness. But neither the desaturated value or any of the 3 grayscale values have a brightness of 49%. So what does a brightness of 49% look like?
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Okay. Sure. Why not.
All of what I've just shown you regarding grayscale is to emphasize the point that your best judgment for which colors look good is a far better measuring stick for a good color palette than any technicalities. Even if the value is the same, the hue can differ enough that you can still get a beautiful finished drawing. Color and our perception of it is so, so vastly technically complex. You can not allow yourself to be bogged down by this. Simply practice, and color will become intuitive to you over time. I have a lot more I could say on the subject of picking and using your colors, but this is already insanely long. Feel free to ask any follow up questions, I hope this was of literally any use!
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rvmmm21 · 3 years
Text
[ V V S her diamonds ] – ch 03.
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[4:15 p.m.] Disappointment tweaks at Seungwan’s heart when she peers through the huge glass window of their study cafe and sees no Bae Joohyun. 
. . . . .
A group of students are huddled in the back, bent over open textbooks, laptops and scattered stationary. 
Yerimie, Saeron, Seul, wow, there’s Jennie sunbaenim. And she spies Sooyoung sunbaenim balancing a tray of various caffeine-injected drinks back to the table.
A sad sigh escapes her lips. Perhaps she’s l–
“Seungwan?” 
Oh my g– what the–?! Seungwan screams, whipping around in shock at the fingers gently resting on the back of her shoulder. She’s met with a slightly surprised Joohyun, standing there wearing a cream Jute blouse tucked into denim jeans, twinkling eyes and endless amusement etched into rosebud lips. 
“S-Sunbae!” She exclaims, grasping her chest to calm her rapid-fire heart. “Y-You’re here, I was just–”
What, peering through the glass, looking for you like a creep? 
“It’s fine,” Joohyun chuckles, adjusting her hold on the stack of thick notebooks cradled in her arm and motioning for the younger girl to lead the way. “Let’s go. This is heavy.”
Thursdays might’ve found an unexpected favour with Son Seungwan.
Busy eyes move from annotating to the two girls urgently making their way over, the students lifting their heads at Seungwan’s warm greeting. 
“Sorry we’re late,” she sincerely apologises. 
Jennie knowingly eyes her friend. “Not surprised.” 
Joohyun raises her a playfully challenging brow before slipping into the free seat next to Sooyoung at the end of the table, right across her partner.
“You ordering anything, Wan?” Seulgi asks between highlighting her page, offering her and Joohyun biscuits in individually wrapped aluminium packets.
Joohyun takes one and Seungwan nibbles on the edge of her biscuit, deep in thought. The group soon slips into the robotic rhythm of monochromatic scribbling, greyscale note-taking, typing, and intermittent snacking. Jennie slips away to order small desserts for everyone at the table. They thank her with shocked bows and hungry stares, unable to settle on one in the garland of appetising coloured treats on the tiny table.
“Sunbae, you’re like Santa Claus,” Seulgi happily attacks the New York baked cheesecake. “When did you order this? It’s like we were asleep and we just woke up to presents!”
Her bearish enthusiasm has an observant Sooyoung unconsciously smiling around her fork.
As the group tucks in, Seungwan thinks a group study date is the safest she can be in terms of being on the receiving end of any more of her senior’s teasing mannerisms.
Fortunately, Joohyun always surprises her.
A little later on, they’re discussing the historical impact of contemporary Korean literature. Right in the middle of a sentence, Seungwan’s concentration is shattered by a deep blush of raspberry when she feels a feather-light graze against her right Adidas sweatpant leg. She chokes, almond eyes shooting up from messy essay notes, silently begging for mercy. But of course, Joohyun’s serene, unbothered expression gives nothing away as she continues to ask for her opinion as though Seungwan is crazy for looking like a flustered mess. 
The frazzled junior doesn’t know what makes her head spin more; the fact that Joohyun, composed as ever, initiated a game of footsie right under both their friends’ noses in public… or that she secretly enjoys it.
Not that she’ll ever admit to the latter.
Small fists corkscrew the sleeves of her sky-blue Chrome Hearts hoodie as the desperation to hide the cherry-blossom tint in her cheeks builds.
. . . . .
It’s past midnight by the time they’re done, and everyone bids goodbye with ‘Z’s coming out of their ears. Much to everyone’s surprise, Sooyoung and Seulgi got along pretty well this evening and the taller girl had hastily agreed when Seulgi suggested they visit her favourite boba place. Yerim and Saeron were late for their movie, and Jennie was spending the weekend at her girlfriends’.
“Wait, are we dumb? Why did we book this now,” Saeron asks incredulously, “aren’t you gonna get wrecked by grumpy ajumma? Curfew ended like ten minutes ago.”
“Ah who cares, she’s always like that,” Yerim retorts with a dismissive wave. “I could fill a prison wall with how many strikes she’s given me and Seungwan and Seulgi unnie.” She slings an arm over Saeron’s shoulder, urging them to hurry. “C’mon, ads don’t take forever.”
“Wan-ah,” Seulgi calls back as she’s being dragged away by an eager Sooyoung, “if you order pizza can you leave some out for me!”
“Yeah, yeah. Enjoy. Don’t wake me up.”
“Hyun-ah, you sure you’re not coming?” Jennie’s sleek midnight-black Vetements cardigan blends with the hues of the night sky, giving away how late it is. She swipes into her messages. “Chaeng said she doesn’t mind.” 
Joohyun laughs with mock disgust. “Thanks Jen, but I’m not crashing your date-nights anymore, thank you very much. I saw enough the last time, my eyes can’t take that kind of stuff.”
Waving goodbye, Jennie and Chaeyoung speed off, leaving Seungwan wondering what ‘kind of stuff’ Joohyun could be referring to.
The pair are drawn to the horribly lit bus stop and just about the only source of light for miles. 
Seungwan yawns silently, but she doesn’t mind waiting with Joohyun. It’s late and although her apartment is in the opposite direction, she’d be at ease knowing her friend got home safely.
The darkness is engulfing, allowing an overhead street lamp to bathe them in its flicking spotlight like stars in a West End Production. 
“We were pretty productive today, sunbae,” the younger tries to make conversation to fill the space between them. “Do you wanna come for next week’s session too?”
“Sure,” comes the reply. “Thanks for waiting with me. When’s your ride getting here? We should’ve booked at the same time.”
Seungwan nervously scratches the back of her neck, crinkling her worksheets in her grip. “Uh, I’m just walking home tonight actually.”
“Oh? Do you live closeby?” she asks in surprise, assuming they were both waiting for taxis.
“Ah, yes, I’m just– it’s just down there.”
Joohyun narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Down there… where.”
“Just a quick walk, past… past the duck pond,” the girl mumbles, staring down at her shoes.
“Q-Quick? Quick?” Joohyun stutters, malfunctioning at their severely clashing definitions of ‘close’. A delicate fist draws back and Seungwan flinches, Bae Joohyun looking closer and closer to doing what she did to Lucas to her poor, startled junior. “The duck pond near uni? Yah, Son Seungwan, that’s almost a twenty minute walk from here.” 
“Fifteen if I have my speed walking playlist on,” Seungwan tries, but she isn’t listening.
“A lot of dangerous things can happen in twenty minutes, you know.” She hurriedly unlocks her phone and clicks into the KakaoTaxi app, altering the destination to add a stop and shoving it into reluctant hands. “Hurry, put your address in.” 
Seungwan so badly wants to politely decline, not confident in her ability to sit in a moving vehicle with such a pretty person without hurling herself out the window at top speeds. But the latter’s glare dares her to try.
With shaky fingers, she successfully types in her address after three tries and hands it back. Joohyun checks it and confirms the change. Seungwan wants to comment on how her frantic nature is actually really endearing, but she resists, thinking she’s still cooling off from it.
“Thank you, sunbae,” she bows instead. She even tries to insist she pay her share of the ride, but Joohyun refuses, saying it’s what she gets for thinking it was a good idea to walk home alone.
Finally, a black Sedan pulls up to the curb and the driver winds down his window. “KakaoBlack for Bae Joohyun?” He checks, looking as ready as both girls are to go home and crash for the night. 
The girl nods, opening the door for Seungwan to get into the backseat and climbing in after her.
Grand streaks of neon dance across the car windows, falling behind as quickly as they appear. Seungwan tears her gaze from the rapid city lights when she hears her name. 
An almost child-like excitement masks Joohyun’s usually steely features when Seungwan hums questioningly, not having heard what she’d said. “I said unnie,” she repeats, “you should call me unnie now that we’re closer. Honestly, I wanted to correct you this evening, but I never got the chance to. Aish, everyone was so noisy.”
The topic of noise has Joohyun distracted, suddenly popping off on a tangent about how sound-proof couple study rooms should be integrated in cafes and student-dense areas alike. But Seungwan finds it hard to focus on anything other than those glowing eyes and that tiny, lopsided smile.
For the rest of the journey, the two exchange stories of their university life experiences, life outside classrooms and even a few laughs; mostly on Joohyun’s part at how Seungwan seems to have the most prankish roommates slash best friends in the world. She loses it at ‘carbonara shampoo’, finding the idea wickedly genius and hilariously absurd altogether. Uncontrollable cackling booms in the backseat and Seungwan can’t help but giggle too, ears saturated with Joohyun’s chimerical laughter.
Eventually, the street lights and the houses start looking familiar and they’re pulled into a student apartment lobby before either of them knows where the time went. Joohyun can see the grumpy ajumma at reception wearing a frown, but she doesn't know it’s because someone’s gone over curfew. Again.
“Goodnight Seungwan.”
“Goodnight… unnie.” Seungwan wishes, ignoring the way their new closeness unfolds her heart like a secretly passed note. “Stay safe, and message me when you get back!”
Making to get out of the car, she flinches when she’s unable to fully stand up. Gulping, she glances over her shoulder to see Joohyun holding her back by her bag straps. In her sleepy state, the younger can’t tell if that intently searching gaze is serious or not.
“By the way, when you were looking into the cafe from outside this evening, you weren’t checking Jennie or Sooyoung out, were you?”
Seungwan shakes her head truthfully. “Why?”
“Good.” A cat-like smirk graces her lips and Seungwan’s stomach drops. “Just making sure.”
. . . . .
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brokenjardaantech · 3 years
Text
absorbance of the deep (chapter 1: first contact)
written for a mermay prompts challenge. my prompt is ‘monochromatic.’
rated: M
relationships: simarkus, simon & josh & north, simon & daniel as twins
summary: 
simon was the quiet son of a lighthouse keeper in a small seaside village. his other half was the sea. no one knew exactly what was happening, but he had his friends, he had his twin brother, he had the ocean - and to him, that was enough.
also on ao3
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It started long before Simon was aware of his connection with the sea.
Back then, he was still loved by his parents. Back then, he was still blissfully unaware of how different he was from other people. 
Back then, someone still cared when he went missing.
He of course had no recollection of the incident himself, being a baby when it happened, and all he knew came from his twin brother’s retelling of the event which he had learnt from their parents who decided that Simon’s lack of speech meant that he didn’t understand words at all even though he spent most of his time at home doing his own work or reading books reserved for people older than him. ‘Hag put us on the goddamned floor,’ Simon remembered the quiet fury of his twin brother as he paced in their shared bedroom. ‘God knows why she would do that. You could barely crawl, and either she forgot to fucking close the door or you somehow managed to open the fucking thing on your own, the next thing she saw after finally finishing cooking lunch was that there was only me, the door to the pier was open, and you were gone. They thought you were gone for good.’
Simon remembered turning his gaze towards the small stack of paper he was holding and rubbing the corner of. It was a copy of the newspaper article from the day he was found on the beach completely soaked in saltwater but very alive, one that took over most of the pages of the large sheet of inked newsprint they call the local newspaper found in the library and therefore required a few sheets of normal paper to photocopy the entire thing double-sided. Little Simon rescued from the beach! was printed at the very top below the name of the newspaper, and the article documented not only the facts - despite the sensationalised title - but also included a lot of interviews of the search and rescue team which seemed to care a lot about his survival and whereabouts, most of which Daniel and North firmly believed to be no more than a show. Simon believed them because he was never a good judge of people’s intentions. 
‘Half of the town thought you were really dead, the other half kept searching just for you to be washed up the beach in the middle of the fucking night and being discovered only the morning after,’ Daniel continued talking and pacing, and Simon had to look away because the movement was making him dizzy. ‘The rest you can find in the article. I’m not gonna waste my time reading aloud.’
Simon grabbed the worn dictionary, flipping to the pages with the words he wanted to convey and pointing his finger at them. but - how - about - dad - and - mum?
‘No fucking idea. Dad said Mum was hysterical.’
The rest Simon forgot because he was tired and he hadn’t been paying attention, and he supposed that it didn’t matter anyway because they stopped caring when he grew up from the easy, quiet baby to the too-quiet toddler who wouldn’t play with other children and scratched his own arms when things became too much. At first, the other children he went to school with left him alone with his sticks and stones which he assembled into shapes resembling the marine animals he remembered from the worn picture books in the kindergarten’s library. He didn’t necessarily understand the words, but the pictures were soft, the fishies were cute, the soft edge of the cardboard felt good in his hands, and they reminded him of a home he yearned for but never had, his obsession with the ocean starting when he was young. It was during these quiet times that another boy of his age approached him. 
‘What are you doing?’ the other boy asked. He was dragging a bag filled with books behind him.
Simon flipped his own book open until he found the page of the octopus he was trying to recreate with his collection of seashells that he found on the beach and a few sticks he found on the dirt in the garden behind the kindergarten, pointing first at the specific octopus he was assembling (there were five of them, he counted), then at the imitation on the ground. He hoped the other boy understood what he meant. He wouldn’t want him to scream in his ear and make them hurt just like the others. For some reason, they thought it would help him hear them better while in fact it was doing the exact opposite. He could hear them well enough; he just didn’t want to speak.
‘Are you building the octopus?’
Simon nodded.
‘May I watch you?’
Another nod, and the two of them sat on the same piece of log as Simon bent down once more to rummage in his collection of pebbles and seashells to complete his octopus, this time with an audience consisting of one single boy already a bit taller than himself. Halfway through the recreation, his companion retrieved a book, one with the same thickness but thinner pages and much more words, but Simon, engrossed in his project, didn’t seem to notice at all, having been sucked into his own world and become completely oblivious to his surroundings, and he only straightened himself as much as his uncooperative limbs could after the octopus was complete. Josh noticed it and put down his book just to be swatted by Simon’s flailing hand that felt like, ‘Look at my work.’
And to two boys, it was a work of art. With dirt as his canvas and random pebbles and sticks and leaves and seashells as his palette, Simon somehow manages to fit them together into a puzzle more detailed than the drawing he based it on, the different colours of nature somehow managing to form a harmonious combination of browns and whites and oranges and green. ‘It’s pretty,’ Josh commented. ‘I like it.’
Simon’s face blushed pink. Tilting his head to one side, he seemed to study his artwork intently for a few seconds before struggling with the zippers of his backpack as if he wanted to open them, and when it was evident that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish the task himself, Josh offered to help him, and he unzipped it quickly just for Simon to snatch the bag back and scoop every single piece of nature he used to construct the octopus with inside. 
‘What are you doing?’ Josh was shocked, but still he zipped up the bag because he didn’t want the contents to spill out. He would be sad if one of the seashells got lost.
Simon hopped off the log he was sitting on and dragged the backpack behind him instead of putting it on. A few steps towards the other side of the park, and then he turned around, beckoned the other boy to follow him with a wave of his hand, his blue eyes still glued onto the ground.
‘Where are you going?’
Simon pointed towards a familiar direction.
‘You’re going to the beach?’
A nod.
‘Okay. Let me pack up.’
By ‘pack up,’ he meant carefully placing his book in his bag, and soon the two boys were dragging their respective bags behind them on the road as they walked to the beach on foot unsupervised by any adults. The sky was a greyish white, the wind was strong from the upcoming rain, the sound of the sea lapping the shore was particularly loud from the silence of the village and the strength of the waves, but all the signs indicating a worsening weather were ignored, Simon determined to go to the beach and Josh too curious to back down from accompanying his potential new friend. Walking was easier when the ground underneath their feet finally changed from asphalt to soft sand, and their tiny footsteps were erased by twin tracks their bags left behind. Simon sat down abruptly just before they reached the line where dry sand gave away to wet.
‘What are you doing?’ Josh asked even though he was already sitting down.
Simon merely pushed his backpack towards the other boy. It took him a few seconds to interpret the action, but Josh got it quickly enough and unzipped the back for him. Simon then poured the contents onto the dry sand, casually shoving the bag to one side and then started reconstructing the octopus once more, and Josh was confused; if the boy wanted to make it on the beach, why didn’t he do it here directly? Why practise in the park first? But he also knew that he probably wouldn’t get an answer from the other boy so he watched the octopus materialise piece by piece instead.
Until he noticed something strange about the ocean.
See, even though they were literal children, they grew up with the sea in their view at all times, and they knew its personality and temper well. When to avoid the shore, when to avoid going out altogether, when to prepare for the worst - they learnt to watch for the subtle signs and act accordingly. But nothing, not from parents, not from school teachers, not even from teenage babysitters, could have prepared Josh for the sight of the sea lapping higher and higher around them while the sand within their ten-foot radius stayed dry as if there was an invisible dome surrounding the two of them. He turned inland and saw the tide converging in front of him, the space around his bookbag staying dry on its own, and he sought out the other boy because he was horrified, he didn’t understand. The wind was picking up. If they didn’t go now, the sea would swallow them.
‘We have to go!’ he says. ‘I don’t know what’s happening, but if we don’t, we’ll die!’
Simon continued to piece the octopus together on still-dry sand while being completely oblivious to his worsening surroundings. He didn’t seem to hear Josh at all.
‘C’mon!’ Josh tugged on Simon’s arm and received an impatient smack. ‘We need to go!’
Do not disturb him, human. Leave the devout alone.
The voice, deep and all-compassing and earth-rumbling, was as shapeless as the shrinking dry circle around them, and Josh didn’t understand, wasn’t sure if he wanted to understand. All he wanted to do now was run, but his way back was already blocked, the tide having crept up to them while the boy was trying to convince his companion to go with him, and now it was so far up that it would be impossible to escape unless he threaded through ankle-deep water. His books would be ruined.
I can provide a safe path out. But do not look back, human, or accept the consequences.
Those would’ve been big words for normal children, but Josh wasn’t normal, having read through the entire kindergarten’s library and had started inhaling the books in the small public library they had, and words were at least something he understood well; one moment he was surrounded by dark waters, and the other there was a path directing him to his bag of books and up the beach to the road, to safety, and he didn’t hesitate to run towards his bag and dragged it up the beach until he was running up the hill, the sound little feet hitting asphalt overwhelmed by the howling wind and raging sea. He spared a look back and discovered that his companion was gone, most of the beach having been swallowed by the rapidly-rising sea level.
He abandoned his new friend and he didn’t even know his name.
Horrified by his own actions, tears rolled down his cheeks as he slowed down his normal walking speed and went back to the kindergarten on foot where his teachers were waiting at the door. ‘Josh!’ one of them rushed forward and wrapped his arms around him. ‘Where were you?’
‘At - at the beach,’ he sobbed. ‘There - there was this boy with me and he’s gone!’
‘Another boy?’ a crackle of thunder, and their conversation was interrupted by a crackle of thunder. They hadn’t even noticed the streak of lightning tearing through the clouds because it was still bright, the clouds were not heavy enough to form anything other than a light rain, but it wasn’t like they cared about the inconsistencies between this rainfall and what they normally experienced anymore; all that mattered right now was that the weather was worsening, there was a child missing, and said child’s twin brother was currently -
‘WHERE IS SIMON?’ Daniel came blundering through before any teachers could grab him and clamped his tiny hands on Josh’s shoulders. ‘I’m asking you: where is Simon?’
Simon? Was it the boy’s name? Josh couldn’t think clearly. He left Simon to die. He was sorry. 
‘He was at the beach,’ he didn’t know why he wasn’t screaming like the others, but as the first bucket of rain poured down the sky, he could imagine the waves sweeping Simon away, dragging him into the deep alongside the octopus he spent so much effort creating, all evidence of his existence gone, gone, gone -
‘The sea took him.’
o0o0o
In reality, young Simon was doing much better than he thought; in fact, the place he ended up with was so good that he didn’t even want to go back on land, let alone with the civilisation living on it at large, the experience edged into his mind so vividly that he can revisit it whenever he wants to even in adulthood as long as he closed his eyes. With Josh gone, he and the ocean could finally be alone with each other, and he let the waves cover him, an invisible barrier protecting him from the cold water and preserving enough air to keep him alive. He blinked, tilted his head to one side while the wave on top of his creation seemed to hesitate to touch it, holding his breath as the ocean judged him. 
Don’t worry. Everything you made that doesn’t hurt us, I like.
He didn’t know what it meant back then, his mind too young to comprehend a promise as solemn as that, and neither did he know who ‘I’ was and whom ‘us’ was referring to, but looking back, it was part sincere reassurance and part lifelong vow despite, and now that he knows everything, he was glad that his love started early; it made growing up less lonely and terrifying; and despite his lack of understanding, he was immediately soothed, and he felt himself relax on the pocket of dry sand, clutching his open backpack and caressing the fabric because he thought it felt pleasant to his fingers. 
I’ll give you something even better.
At last, his octopus was swept away by the waves, his offering accepted by the other half of himself that he didn’t even know existed back then, and there was no fear in his heart when the ocean enveloped him, surrounded him, carried him to the depths where everything was blue because no other colour could reach that deep. He found himself liking the colour; it wasn’t complicated like the kaleidoscope of life on land, it didn’t send needles into his eyes like the sharp reds and oranges the fishermen used to paint their boats so that they could be visible when they were out at sea, it wasn’t complicated like the subtle blue of the sky when it wasn’t covered by the clouds. This was raw, simple, the only wavelength that the ocean allowed to reach him among all others, so it must be the colour of protection as well.
He didn’t know all of these, back then, but these are some of the conclusions Simon arrived at after years of sharing his life with the ocean. What he did know was that the deep blue was a pleasant colour, one that calmed him down so much that he wanted to go to sleep right there on the soft sand of the seabed.
Sleep well, starlight.
Unbeknownst to him, his other half was still wide awake protecting his land-dwelling counterpart. The current changed to maintain the temperature of the tiny body at the bottom of the sea, the sea animals were instructed to stay off course so as to not disturb his slumber, and the earth also slowed down in case the pressure would become too much and frighten the fragile heart of a human child. It also got to work, finishing millions of years worth of progress in mere hours to create a safe haven for Simon, and he was carried there so gently that not once did he stir while he rode the waves without him knowing, and when he woke up, he was lying on a bed of soft but dry moss located in a cave of stone walls and soft sand. His parents and his twin weren’t there to urge him to wake up so he basked in the warmth that seemed to radiate from the pale sand as he listened to the sound of running water nearby. He would discover upon his second visit to the cave that it was the murmurs of an underwater stream feeding a hot spring near the end of the cave. 
Time to get back, starlight.
He wasn’t in the position to judge or protest so he let the sea carry him back to his home on the surface. He couldn’t quite swim in the ocean yet and had a tendency to walk back into the water no matter how much inland the waves placed him; eventually they settled on putting him back on the pier outside his parents’ house/lighthouse, and although it was too close to the surface civilisation for their liking, it at least kept young Simon out of the water at last because he remembered jumping off the pier on his own and then landing into the water with his stomach first and the pain wasn’t something he would want to repeat. It was dark still when he was sent back to the surface and he didn’t want to be away from the sea yet, so with his tiny feet dangling off the side of the pier, he lay on the wood for hours watching the stars twinkle in sync with the dark waters kissing the beach glowing silvery in the moonlight, and then having to close his eyes as the sun painted the horizon a fiery orange and the clouds a deep purple. The sea stayed the same, however, the greyish-blue waves too choppy to glisten under the sunlight. The wind picked up as the land absorbed the energy from the sun and started heating the air, and that was how his parents found him: unconscious at the edge of the pier behind their house, a soft breeze smelling of the ocean feeding the fire burning what remained of his mind away.
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struwwelzeter · 4 years
Note
Because i miss your design themed rants (it is good word here) i would like you to rank Rammstein album covers from designers point of view.
Ah, I love you. This got VERY ranty.
This is kinda hard because I tend to judge the entire packagaing/notes, and when I count that into it the ranking would be ever so slightly different. I’ll mention it for each I have Opinions (TM) on, but yeah, this is solely going on cover. I’ll only do the studio albums, not made in germany or the DVDs, or this will get too big.
7th: Rosenrot.
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I know lots of you are gonna hate me for this. It’s not that I don’t like it, I do, it’s beautiful. Unfortunately it’s ... slightly lazy. It’s I think their most obvious cover and obvious feels like it’s good design but never truly is. It’s got that first idea feel, if that makes any sense. There is always that project where you go “uh can’t think of anything, but this works.” It’s not a bad thing, they clearly still knew what they were doing. It’s just ... that typical photoshop post apocalyptic composit that lost of metal/alternative bands did at some point. They all did it because it’s cool. No argument there. It’s just that I expect a bit ... more.
6th: Herzeleid
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I know it’s iconic, but. The execution?! Terrible. The colours of their skin and that flower?! Too different to feel monochromatic, to same same to contrast nicely. Too much texture. What is that?! The positive bit is the placement of the typography because, neat! Most people fail at that. I like the blue-grey there aswell, how about you’d added that to their skin a little? No? Ok.
Also, this (Richard speaking):
“The bloody sleeve! What a crazy situation that was. We approved the photos in a car park without thinking what we were letting ourselves in for. When we saw what the designer had done, we freaked! We looked so… gay! All of us stripped to the waist. It was like an ad for a gay porno film. So we had to say, sort it out. Make us look straight again. Change the sleeve.”
Who in the fuck works like this?! Nevermind, I know it was a considerably younger Dirk Rudolph, but fucking hell, have some self respect, all of you. I know they didn’t know what they were doing, they probably had the management/record company comission it, and that was still the time graphic designers were seen as just pixel pushers from that time it took 3 days to layout a poster. Still. What was that brief?! Could you have sat down for 20 minutes and talk, perhaps?! Also, I hope this is how Richie learned to be the nightmare client I know he is. Don’t approve layouts in a car park, what the fuck is wrong with you.
It’s a pity because the concept? Nice. Sculpted men infront of flowers, what else do you want from life. Why crysanthemes, tho? Too textured in that macro shot. What is that photo angle?! Might try and redo that if I ever feel like it.
5th: Reise, Reise
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This breaks my heart a little, because it’s my lonely island album. And it isn’t bad by any stretch. Actually, their album cover game is ridiculous, can I have that established as a general benchmark? It would make for a lot less mental break downs. The thing is ... I like the idea. Make it look like the black box, cool. The problem is the type. It makes it look like “Flugrekorder Nicht Öffnen” is the album title. To be fair, Typesetting is my main thing, and album artists get it wrong (imo) 99 out of 100 times. I wish they would have comitted more and just left the titel off and solved it with a slide in, or a sticker or something like that. It’s just a bit ... weird. What works brilliantly is that it’s very memorable, stands out on the shelf, is unusual, all of that. It’s iconic. I do like it very much but I had to place something here.
4th: Liebe ist für alle da
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Now the thing with that album is that it has two covers. If I’d gone by the original one, I’d have to place it behind Reise, Reise. Everything RR has in impact, this is missing. It’s too dark, has too many pieces, it won’t stand out on a shelf. Especially not in the CD age when it was on 12x12 cm. Even on a Vinyl, it’s ... just not that impactful. Sure, the photograph is beautiful but meh. Luckily there is a second option. And that - is almost like a logo. It works as a symbol, and that makes it so strong. Less is more. Brilliant. You can draw it from memory. It’s so iconic, the kind of stuff that starts showing up in subways, drawn on the back of a seat and sprayed on walls. Tell me you never wanted to paint that on a flag and take it to a pride parade. I am sure some of us have.
I do want to mention the booklet in this, because it does bump it up a little too, because where the panorama image fails as a cover, the inside is done so beautifully with the fold out, the type setting, everything. It’s special, and done with love and it shows.
3rd: Mutter
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There is just something about this that is so, so, so memorable. Everyone recognises this. If you ask anyone over the age of 20 to describe Rammstein with an album cover only to someone less familiar, is anyone gonna say anything but “they’re the band with the embryo in close up”?! Maybe this is subjective because that’s how I first got exposed to them, but I don’t think so. It’s such a powerful image. It’s both beautiful and uncomfortable, the way Rammstein as a whole and that album in particular is beautiful and uncomfortable. It’s stunning. That’s it. Unfortunately, this one falls apart inside. The went too far with the whole Matrix inspired cyber elements. It’s trendy and trendy never stands the test of time, in that it has the same problem Rosenrot has, but much worse because it’s not even done that well. They could have just used the photos and kept it raw. The type setting on the cover is as good as it gets with albums tho, so I am happy.
2nd: Sehnsucht
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Ah, Sehnsucht. The most perfect band shoot they ever had. Helnwein just ... did it. I don’t know, it both defined and summed up who they are aesthetically for the longest time. It’s the visual statement that says “this is Rammstein”. It ... just looks like a band that sings about heartbreak and necrophilia is supposed to look like. Don’t you agree? How else would it look like? Even that omniously coloured beach. It’s as if the predicted the mood of True Detective, only less Hollywood. That darkness we don’t want to see, that can happen anywhere. And where they fell short with Mutter, where they added too much on to these powerful images, they just added the type. Granted, it was the 90s so it’s slightly experimental type. But unlike most type in the 90s it stood the test of time. Add the whole variable cover versions and chefs kiss! Beautiful work. Makes me happy and emotional and ugh.
1st: The White Album
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I’m just calling it that now. The Matchstick. You know, good design is made up from three components only: Concept. Commitment. Execution. The concept of this is so streamlined and clean. It’s the entire Rammstein story narrowed down to a single little thing. It’s small and ordinary looking but it can become dangerous and big. It’s underestimated. A little piece of wood with a head of phosphor and calium chlorit and yet you can commit the most legendary arson. It’s the personification of the thing that has become synonymous with them: Fire. It says so much with so little. And then they comitted to that. No useless typography, a simple but oh so well done photoshoot, the simple text on white. They didn’t ad too much additional ideas on to it, they trusted that one to carry and it does. They could have done without the black and white match stick arrangements inside, although I’m not even sure if that’s not just a limited edition thing, it’s a bit too much almost. They got scared a little there. The execution is also well done, I have very little to critique, only that I feel it lacks a tiny bit of love. The thing is, the more minimalist you go, the more love you have to put into each element. I feel like the spacing of the type should have been fixed in a few places but honestly that is being very very picky. Or not. Because if it wasn’t for that, and the teeeeny tiny commitment issue, this should have been a candidate for the packaging grammy. I mean it should be even the way it is, but we all know how those fuckers ignore our boys.
I’m done. Can I use this as application? Do you think if I send them a run down of basically tearing them apart they will hire me?
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straynstay · 5 years
Text
Double Knot theory
this might be completely wrong, sorry lol it took me the whole day to come up with this, my head hurts lol
Alrighty peeps, here I am again with another attempt in trying to understand what’s behind the minds of SKZ when it comes to concepts, so I’m gonna analyze Double Knot on my yeezys after watching several times all their MVs (yes, I’m crazy lol). I’m not gonna be able to put pics of everything here cause tumblr sucks sometimes, but you can check the MVs to see what I’m talking about in case you don’t remember or didn’t notice. BARE WITH ME CAUSE THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG RIDE!
Starting with District 9 (where it all began), we have Mr. Bang Chan (the one in charge of their duties, therefore the leader) that sees a red flower and realizes that something is not right because if everything is monochromatic, how can there be a red flower? A glitch? An abnormality in their reality?
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I think that the flower is a Poisenttia, but I don’t understand much of flowers, so I might be wrong. But if it’s really a Poisenttia, it could mean that the flower is pointing them to “salvation” since, according to Google, this flower is used during Christmas to symbolize the star of Bethlehem which led the Wise Men to where Jesus was born. So maybe the flower is showing that there’s a way out of this controlled reality they’re in? Maybe... (or maybe the flower will lead them to the big boss).
Moving on, Chan runs away to find that one of the drones that was watching them has crashed with a glass (?), making him place his hand on the panel that is projecting their world, and it wobbles (idk), meaning that they’re in a fake reality (everything is not what it seems!!)
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Chan then hands out red papers with an encrypted message (I tried really hard reading what was on it, but it looks like and alien language or sth) to all SKZ members and they all get inside the bus (I’ve always wondered who’s driving the bus…) to break free from that reality and they enter another reality, a post-apocalyptic one, kinda lol, which is District 9 and they think they rule it cause they raised their flags there (but they’re not the ones in control, sorry boys)
And at the end we see the Stray Kids logo with black letters and the K in red. My mind went crazy and thought: S T R A Y K I D S = 9 letters, but one is different. > 9 boys, but one is different. Who? I think is Hyunjin because he’s the only one that looks at Chan after receiving the paper to escape and because he’s the one that the camera shows right after we see their logo on the floor lol So what I take from this is that Stray Kids now has become a glitch in their perfect system, but Hyunjin is not completely okay with it.
Moving on, in Mirror (not Miroh) we have Hyunjin alone in a room with 9 chairs, which I think that while the others left, he stayed behind. He’s writing on a piece of paper: who am I? where am I? I am not me (and the pencil dramatically breaks). They repeat several times “I don’t even know who I am, I just came along as they told me to” so I’m assuming Hyunjin is the one who’s still lost while SKZ is trying to break free, and maybe he’s having a hard time trusting Chan cause in the end Chan and Hyunjin are facing each other (don’t fight boys lol). 
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And I say that Hyunjin is the different one by watching subtle things in other MVs (like Voices, MIA, My Pace...) in which the scenario changes suddenly when his part comes, or when it doesn’t glitch as much as the others, etc., which makes me believe my theory that he’s the odd one, the one that actually doesn’t want to be part of the group.
May I add that in My Pace they’re all stepping on red pamphlets on the floor that says “Just stay in my lane”… and they’re not staying in their lane anymore? (you can’t control SKZ trying to take over the system).
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Now we move on to I Am You MV which is the sequel to My Pace, right? So we see them after glitching a lot in My Pace and they’re still being watched, but now Jisung breaks a surveillance camera lol and they move to another post-apocalyptic scenario cause, let’s be honest, who would live on that rooftop with drawings of a couch and a plant if it wasn’t for the end of the world? But what called my attention was the fact that we see Jeongin’s reflection on a puddle and we see two moons (hi Side Effects and Double Knot), they’re on the move on a truck instead of a bus, and we have an interesting scene with Chan and Jeongin’s reflection becoming one (so they’re indeed in this together), but what about Hyunjin? Well, we see him assembling something like a bat-signal that has SKZ logo on it as if he’s now calling for them…but by the end of the MV their logo still has the K as the odd one out.
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So what’s all this about? In my weird mind, Chan discovered that they were living a lie, being controlled and told what to do and decided to break free from all of it, and while the others seem to agree, Hyunjin isn’t fully convinced about it. Maybe he’s scared? He doesn’t know who he actually is, since they all seemed to be in a mind controlling environment being watched 24/7, so he’s lost. The albums go like this in the storyline I’ve created in my mind: I Am Not = I’m not who I think I was, my life has been a lie; I Am Who = who am I? everything is a mess while I’m searching for my own self at my own pace; I Am You = I’m a glitch just like you.
NOW WE MOVE ON TO THE CLÉ SERIES!! (I swear to God SKZ is trying to give me a headache cause I’ve never used my brain this much before in my life lol)
In Miroh (not Mirror lol) we all know now that they are trying to overtake the system. They were able to enter the surveillance room and find those who they thought were controlling them. There’s some signs I was able to check in Miroh during the parade (that I haven’t noticed before) that are quite interesting. The first one says “There is no Tarzan in City Jungle”. Tarzan is considered a wild man, someone who’s not behaving the way society demands since he was raised in the jungle among animals. The other signs say “Something happened, nothing changed” and “The world is the same”, so I’m assuming that society is celebrating the fact that the faulty/glitched ones (the “Tarzans” aka SKZ) are long gone now – since District 9 –, and everything is back to normal with everyone behaving like they should and the system functioning perfectly, but they don’t realize that SKZ figured their way into the City Jungle (aka the central part of the system) and are gonna make a mess in it lol
I have already analyzed Side Effects (you can check it here), but I’m gonna go even crazier now and assume that Side Effects is also them being chased by the “boss” after what they’ve done in Miroh, and they have to follow unlocked roads in order to lay low and not be captured. Maybe that’s why Hyunjin is the nervous one in the MV, fighting Seungmin (cause he’s about to register with a camera where they are and what they’re doing) and Felix (who wants to leave the cart, their ‘safe’ zone), because he didn’t want to be there in the first place. His lines in the song shows he’s afraid and doubting himself.
But at the end of Side Effects, Hyunjin is now converted to SKZ’s cause, if that makes sense. After everything they’ve gone through, everything that happened in Miroh and the other MVs, he’s finally part of the group. So Chan, as the leader, reaches out to him, and Hyunjin accepts, leaving a key behind – which I think might be what he was holding onto since District 9 (cause they all had separate rooms in that ‘prison’ and that key looks like a regular room key and not one of the fancy keys that show up on Double Knot). Now they’re gonna walk their path as a unit, not individuals.
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Alright, that being said, I’m gonna move on to Double Knot. In Double Knot we see them walking on a road that looks almost exactly like the one they’ve been staring at in Victory Song in a city with two moons, so that means that after running a lot in Side Effects, they’ve reached their destination = the city. 9 fancy keys appear on top of some maps, so I’m assuming everything is complete now. We see an Astronaut billboard and we also have “take off” being showed in a bracelet, a ring, a necklace, and on the road. I’ll comment on those two later.
Right, so here comes the fun parts of this analysis. When Jisung (?) ties his laces, the ground becomes glitched as if something (aka SKZ) is interfering in the system (we can see signal written, so it means ‘no signal’ or ‘error-signal’). 
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And now EVERYTHING STARTS TO MAKE SENSE! Because SKZ now knows that since everyone is in this together after Hyunjin decided to join them in Side Effects, they can play with the glitches! Let me try to explain it better: after watching this MV and the others, I now see their concept kinda like Wreck It Ralph, if you know what I mean lol They’re not where they were supposed to be and they’re glitching inside a world that’s being projected to them, a fake world in which someone is in charge, but they broke free from that control, so now that they’re complete as a unit, they can be like Vanellope and play around with the faulty system that can’t handle them, meaning that they’re free and can go anywhere, change from one to another, lag the system and confuse the hell out of whoever is still trying to stop them.
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This MV has more glitches and interferences than any other one, so it probably means they’re closer to the end than before. I don’t know if they’re trying to reach the main core or anything like this, but I do believe that this is not the end for them, I still think that there’s a final boss even after Miroh... but this is just me guessing lol
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Minho, Jeongin and Seungmin see that they’re still being watched by a drone (kinda like District 9) and they’re recognized by the system (can you see their names on the side of the screen right below Stray Kids?), maybe the system is trying to get rid of the glitches?
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Hyunjin is running alone on the street until he reaches a crossroad (now he doesn’t have to choose which road to take, he can go anywhere) and then after running some more he finds a key with the SKZ logo on the floor. This key is the same key that Chan uses to unlock the Yellow Wood on the elevator, btw, and the same key that we see him trying to open the white door with; the same door that Chan peeks through the key hole and sees himself and the SKZ on the sky, somewhat in a heroic kinda pose, right?
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“ERROR-SIGNAL” shows up at the end when they’re all together, and we see that the Stray Kids logo is now all white (they’re all the same now). At the end, there’s blue while we see the interferences, which I think is because they’re gonna go up to the sky in Levanter.
THEY’RE GONNA TAKE OFF TO THE MOON!!! or not lol mark my words: Stray Kids everywhere all around the UNIVERSE! the world is too small for them now! The MV also shows “the owners of Clé”, meaning that they’ve learned how to make the system work for them now. GO, STRAY KIDS!
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Something weird that I noticed while watching the MVs is that they’re always on rooftops (in Victory Song, Voices, I Am You, Miroh, etc), as if they’re trying to reach higher than that, but can’t or don’t know how to yet. They need an Astronaut to help them Take Off (see what I did here?), and I believe that the answer is behind the white door that Chan is about to open. Now I have no idea who or what might the astronaut, or what’s behind that door, but I hope we get more answers in Levanter.
Wow, I think I wrote a lot and there’s still much more that we can talk about this MV and SKZ’s concept. Maybe I’m dead wrong, but this is how I interpreted the story, so feel free to discuss your ideas with me if you want to~
STRAY KIDS MAKE ME PROUD AND THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS ♥️
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