888

call me august || fr account: 888 #670602

[888-fr]

[TACHYON PROTOCOL]

I finally got around to writing lore for one of my dragons. Here's the problem about lore, though, it's sort of boring to read when there's a lot of it… So instead, I made a short comic about this guy to introduce him to you.

The TL;DR is that Tachyon believes he comes from a timeline where a massive Emperor named the Luminous Heir brought cataclysmic damage to the world. He is now attempting to kill the Imperials he believes made up that Emperor in order to prevent this from happening again. Functionally, we cannot be sure if this is real or not. It's actually entirely possible that Tachy hallucinated the entire thing. It's also possible that he's the one who caused the Emperor to form in the first place (so many dead Imperials, hello?) He does not attempt to kill all Imperials, only the ones he believes were part of that larger Emperor at the beginning. Tachy only remembers their names, not what they look like, so as you can imagine this is troublesome if an Imperial is named something extremely common. He's been wandering around Sorneith looking for these dragons.

Thanks for reading, and please leave a comment or drop a like on Tachyon if you enjoyed it!

[888-fr]

her: you better not be drawing the rest of the bird on vigil F with the Rooster tertiary gene when I get there

me:

[888-fr]

her: you better not be available on the Public Auction House at 850g, forever, with no print or time limit

me:

https://www1.flightrising.com/auction-house/buy/realm/skins?itemname=Skin%3A+RADIANT+WATCH

[888-fr]

fascinated by the explanation behind the decision to not make dragon-themed cat breeds on Pawborough is because 'could be antisemitic'

(not my screenshot/was sent to me, so I don't know what the conversation ahead and behind this looks like)

[ajyellowjacket]

Here's official word from the PB team that R is referring to BTW

[888-fr]

And what about Eastern dragons?

[888-fr]

alright I'm crying sorry... NO DRAGON CATS because stereotypical western dragons have antisemitic origins so we have to be VERY CAREFUL! Tolkien depictions of dragons being greedy and wanting valuable items stem directly from RACIST ROOTS! by the way, we're adding a stereotypical western dragon minipet because one of our admins wanted to have a dragon avatar and also he got it as a tattoo

[hoopsies]

Prophet of empty / Dream the Shadow Flames

Tachyon belongs to 888 (#670602)/@888-fr Makaria belongs to MythicalViper (#167480)/@mythicalviper-fr

Check out their amazing skin resources and analysis : (1) - (2) - (3) - (4)

[888-fr]

fascinated by the explanation behind the decision to not make dragon-themed cat breeds on Pawborough is because 'could be antisemitic'

(not my screenshot/was sent to me, so I don't know what the conversation ahead and behind this looks like)

[ajyellowjacket]

Here's official word from the PB team that R is referring to BTW

[888-fr]

And what about Eastern dragons?

[888-fr]

@forcedcoma @theonewhopoops

Making a new post to answer your questions since the original post is already loooooong. So about the lines and shadows: people seem to think this is an easy part, but it's probably the most mysterious part of the whole process! You pretty much have to figure it out as you go, and every skin artist I've talked to has had a different way of doing it. It's an invisible but very important part of making a good skin.

It took 2 tries to get Tachy's skin through queue. Here's a gif comparing the original skin, the 1st pass of the lines and shadows, and the version that eventually made it onto site.

In terms of how visible it has to be... really, it depends! The rule is 'visible enough' and what that means depends on the skin admin looking at queue that day. You can, of course, just leave the lines and shadows default grey on multiple. But it won't look very good. That's why I always tint my lines and shadows.

What happens if you tint the lines and shadows all one colour on a multicoloured skin like this? Well... obviously, since the lines and shadows are on a multiple layer, it's going to change the entire look of the skin! See how a flat turquoise tint or a flat red tint completely change the look of the skin? Not good either.

Here's what the final version of the lines and shadows that are clipped look like. Red for the red bits, turquoise/blue for those parts. This means you can preserve the general colours of the skin (unavoidably it will look more saturated/darker) while making the lines and shadows visible!

Okay, so what does that tinted masking layer actually look like in the end?

Like I said, invisible but critical part of making the skin look good!

(How do I pick which colours are 'correct' for the tint? I wouldn't be able to say. 5 years of skinmaking and general experience of colours, I think, which are my strong suit. Just play around until it looks right and remember that it still can take me 4+ rejections for a skin to pass through queue. :P)

[888-fr]

working on vigil f editions

[888-fr]

fascinated by the explanation behind the decision to not make dragon-themed cat breeds on Pawborough is because 'could be antisemitic'

(not my screenshot/was sent to me, so I don't know what the conversation ahead and behind this looks like)

[888-fr]

Skin Process: Tachyon & Tachyon Lite

I wanted to share the process for these two because it's interesting and might be a fun read for people who don't normally make or draw Flight Rising skins. I was the one who actually drew the skin, but 5 other artists helped bring it to life. So it ended up being very different from my typical workflow!

Here's how we went from this to this!

I first wanted to make a skin for Tachy about a month and a half ago. This was my first go, and I even submitted it to the queue, but I really wasn't happy with how simple it was. I was still trying to keep his design 'simple', close to the stuff I draw him with in his comic, but it just didn't... look very good? I don't make this kind of skin a lot.

The hood draws a lot from the way this skin drapes - I messaged lightleaf to ask if they'd be okay with me borrowing from how they drew the hood, and they said yes. So, I had a skin, but not the skin I wanted to make. I submitted it to queue, but I'm glad it got rejected for lines and shadow reasons. Can you imagine if this is just the version that I went with?

This is when I asked auroshen for help on fabrics, tassels, and additional ornamentation. We wanted to go with a Tibetan sort of look for Tachy at this point, and auro delivered a very very nice sketch. However, auro still wasn't happy with it and asked me to hold on while they figured something else out.

A couple of weeks went by. It was at this point that I decided, if I wanted this skin to look good, it was time for me to call in people who were good at doing the things I wanted on the skin. I wanted to draw most of the skin myself still, but I asked stillhunt to give me a sketch for his wings that I could base my lines off of.

I usually draw on 1250px canvases. This time, I asked specifically for the sketch on a 750px canvas so I could break myself out of the usual type of lines that I do. I then relined the wings myself. At this point, we'd thrown out the colour scheme that the original skin draft had. I was having a really tough time with what colours to go with! I knew I wanted something multicoloured and matching his Jester perfectly, but there were still a lot of decisions to be made. (In particular: we liked the gradient of red on the inside of his wings, but we weren't sure about the yellow. I wanted to match it to the Mistral Mantle apparel (that I didn't even end up putting on him anyway, LOL), and the red of the Jester matched the flow of the ribbons well!)

I also changed the lineart of the wings from the rounded secondaries to the much sharper and more jagged ones that my original skin draft had. It seemed to suit him better! Also, we could get a nicer red gradient going this way along the secondaries, which was my original goal. By this point, none of the original sketch from al was still part of the current lineart. It had been replaced piece by piece, ship of Theseus style as I coloured.

Now, this is the part at which I usually stop in the skin. But I knew I had to be better for this one, because I seriously wanted this skin to be GOOD. So I took a deep breath and submitted to the process of merging the lines on top of the flatcolour and rendering the wings. I think they turned out pretty well. :D

This is where I asked my friends to do sketches on Tachy again. This time, I asked for open-ended sketches, things that they wanted to contribute. While they were doing that, I also received advice from 43617 on the ribbon flow and fethermage on the wing colours (more RED!) Big big shoutout to @grimae @fr-sucrose @mythicalviper-fr for sketching their own additions on the Tachyon skin. Asmo gave him gold scales, auro delivered on a remake of their previous sketch, Myth added feet and tail tassels, and Sucrose drew his flowers.

Now is when I relined, recoloured, shaded, and rearranged everything, added touches of my own, and then merged everything down and rendered the whole thing. I don't draw fabrics, and I was CONSIDERING asking someone ELSE for help again on that! But auro send me the psds of some of their own skins (warning: very good). That's how I realized fabric patterns don't have to be that detailed or intimidating if you don't want them to be. I was putting them off until last because I was scared! I also looked at how other artists render fine golden details and shiny beads for the other parts of the skin. In hindsight now that the skin is on site, I think the lineart for the eye pendants should've been thicker. They stand out to me for how 'flat' they look on the dragon, which could've been fixed if I outlined them more strongly.

That's how we got to the skin you see today! I also made a 'lite' version to use for commissioning art, and wearing apparel with. (You don't want to throw the version of a skin with all the bells and whistles at an artist for a pixel commission, and having an on-site version is far easier than keeping an image on hand of how he 'should' look simplified.) Here's the final version of the skin with additional highlights and the flower arrangements.

Thanks for reading along! It took me about a month and a half (first draft was October 16th, final skin was approved yesterday) to get here. A lot of that was waiting around and thinking about what I wanted to do. Once I started the 'revamp', it was about a week to finish. The first few days were doing the wings, waiting for collaboration to come back, and relining. The cloak and the final few bits of pendant/cloak rendering took me a day, and then I let it sit for a while before I sent it off to the skin queue. (Right before Thorntail release, actually! I was worried about the wait time.) In the skin queue, he was rejected once for lines and shadows before being approved on the second try a week later.

Here's a gif front to back of the whole process.

I'm really glad with how this skin turned out. He looks wonderful and it couldn't have been done without my friends.

About my device and drawing program: CSP, 750px canvas size, 3-4px default hard round brush and eraser. (You don't need fancy brushes to make great skins.)

If you have questions about this or skinmaking in general, I'm happy to answer!

Myth's skin guide || My skin tips & tricks share

[888-fr]

I know we've seen a lot of fascinating takes recently but this one has to take the cake. "mobile devices are straight up inferior to computers and people should just get devices that act like a computer mouse" from someone who thinks they have something important to say about accessibility is WILD? I would literally assume the things I've seen people say over the past week were bad faith strawman exaggerations of people who can't read, don't live in the real world, and make it my problem, except every single one of these takes has come from a real live human adult?! where are these people coming from. my post is about a SITE REFACTOR as a HOUSE RENOVATION METAPHOR

[888-fr]

I find it weird to compare flight rising making an ugly and corporate UI change to irl actual accessibility failures in buildings like wheelchair ramps /:

I find it weird to say this to me when my post was not, has never been, comparing a UI change to wheelchair ramps but explaining what a reactive website refactor means and why there won't be a 'legacy mode' toggle (an explanation that has perhaps gone over your head)

do any of you people actually read my post? I'm asking out of genuine curiosity

[888-fr]

hey just wanted to say thanks for doing the write up about why a toggle button isn't possible! I was also kind of annoyed at the change and was hoping they'd be able to implement a toggle but reading your post helped me understand why it can't happen and I think that's also helping me accept and appreciate the changes more :] just wanted to share since you've been getting so much unfounded hate for it

thanks! I'm actually doing fine, I've been moving out for the past week so I've only been checking in between doing that... taking little breaks from packing boxes to get ragebaited by people who have really big feelings about the website and need to make it my problem 😭 it's been tempered by lovely people like you though

like my god guys. it's not about the RAMP. notice how nobody raging at me actually has anything to say about the point of my post, which was, quite simply, just WE ARE NOT GETTING A TOGGLE BACK TO THE OLD SITE

[888-fr]

flight rising is full of the most melodramatic adults on this planet earth. people are acting like they have a gun to their head and being forced to look at new update and suffer forever.

i applaud your patience in responding to people, i was getting pissed off reading that thread.

dude there's people, who don't even play flight rising, that feel the need to find my post and pick apart the metaphor I used because (??????) they have big feelings about Websites in General and decided to make it my problem

"making something mobile friendly doesn’t mean accessible" it's a responsive refactor. You people have rocks in your head

[888-fr]

euthanized after 9 pages of nice messages and 2 of hardcore UI debate

[pigeon-butch]

your muscles being pleasantly sore after exercise is such a nice incentive I can see why they patched that in. the forced regular logins to avoid losing progress however are a predatory practice and deserve nothing but scorn.

[888-fr]

Holy shit they're trying to rip you to shreds in there... I'm sorry people are taking you in such bad faith-

I need a flowchart

[888-fr]

bruh I am not the one who made the updates to the site

[888-fr]

my bad for simply making a post that explains what a refactor is, without also adding in 100000 disclaimers about what staff should've done better and a thorough analysis of what went wrong and emphasizing every aspect of how site accessibility works and discussing ways of improving modality without sacrificing site style and a detailed analysis of staff's intentions when making a UI update (that I MUST EMPHASIZE, IN NO WAY WORKED ON OR HAVE AFFILIATION WITH). Should have put in a whole engineering report with it too and gone deep into the technical details which I am in no way privy to. I'll do better next time