Hii! You fucking ate with the TDI redesigns and it wanted to know if you'd make a guide as to how you mimicked the TDI style?
hihi !! tysm !! glad a lot of ppl like em !!
as for the style guide, i am far from an expert at replicating art styles, but having a neo-UPA inspired art style really made this easier for me, even if i did struggle on getting used to some design choices.
DISCLAIMER: I do not condone tracing over other peopleâs artwork to claim as your own final product. I only trace the shapes from the total drama characters to break down and analyze the art style for educational purposes.
IN GENERAL
total dramaâs art style is heavily stylized and takes inspiration from clone high and many UPA-inspired cartoons in the late 90âs to early 2000âs. it uses very thick and bold outlines to define its characters and their individual shape language. a lot of designs use a variety of sharp angles, straight lines, and curved arcs to achieve a balanced character design that works in the total drama universe.
because the shape language is very geometric and simple, itâs surprisingly easy to recreate the total drama art style & reimagine some of your favorite characters in the universe!
BODY TYPES: THE âTYPICALâ WOMAN
a lot of the women in the show follow this base, even more than the âtypicalâ male body type. compared to the men, the women of total drama have cat-like eyes, stylized lips, skinny necks, an hour-glass figure, longer and thicker legs, and pointy fingers. head shapes & features may vary depending on character and/or ethnicity. not all women in the show look like this, though! thereâs a decent handful of women with very unique body types, such as beth, macarthur, & emma from the 2023 reboot! it also helps to reference characters from different seasons to get a better idea of the shape language in the showâs universe!
BODY TYPES: THE âTYPICALâ MAN
the âtypicalâ body type for men isnât as well defined as it is for the âtypicalâ woman, so there arenât as many examples of what defines the âtypicalâ male body type. However, based on the handful of characters we collected, we can determine that the âtypicalâ male body type in total drama is top-heavy. compared to the women, many of the men have broad chests and shoulders, thicker and longer arms, thicker necks, thinner waists and hips, and shorter, thinner legs. they have flatter, more boxy fingers comoared to the pointy fingers the women have. head shapes and features may vary depending on character and/or ethnicity.
BODY TYPES: THE PLUS SIZED WOMAN
plus-sized women follow some of the same rules & principles as the âtypicalâ woman does, from more cat-like eyes to sharper fingers however, in contrast to the more common body type, these woman have much thicker body proportions and use rounder, smoother lines to emphasize either fat or muscle. head shapes and other features may vary depending on the character and/or ethnicity.
BODY TYPES: THE PLUS SIZED MAN
thereâs a pretty good variety when it comes to drawing plus-sized men. while some of them, like ripper, follow some similar principles to the âtypicalâ man, others offer a new, unique design base to work with. their features are generally rounder and wider to emphasize their weight. head shapes & other features may vary depending on character and/or ethnicity.
BODY TYPES: THE LANKY MAN
unlike the âtypicalâ man, the lankier men donât usually have the same broad shoulders and chest. their limbs are much thinner, & they sometimes donât have any pronounced calves. itâs more common for the lankier men to have their feet facing in the same direction as opposed to the other, though the latter isnât an uncommon design desicion either. head shapes and other festures vary depending on the character and/or ethnicity.
BODY TYPES: THE BEEFY MAN
Of all the body types presented to the male characters, this one is the closest and most similar to the âtypicalâ male body type. the difference is that the broadness of the shoulders and chest are exaggerated more, and the shape of the arms can vary between being wider to having more lumps. head shapes and other features may vary depending in character and/or ethnicity.
HAIR STYLES
a hairstyle can tell people a lot about a character. theres a lot of different ways to draw hair on characters, though in general, the appeal to total dramaâs art style would be the simplicity and angularity in its shape language and character designs, so you donât have to give your character thousands of spiky hair strands to make them appealing.
im not good at explaining how i replicate art styles so i really hope these help!!! also im sorry this ask took forever to compile lol i just wanted an excuse to study the shows art style more. heres another helpful video to help understand the process of character design !!
i also recommend checking out harry goldâs channel. he does a lot of art style replication videos & this one explains art style replication exceptionally well!
One legitimately weird thing about Tumblr is that we literally canât code for shit, many people quit working at Tumblr due to a hostile work environment, and we canât seem to program a simple blogging website to not flood your RAM.
I'd always been curious about what the Qian Kusuriuri/Ken would look like, and now that we officially have him (which is still so cool), I wanna share all that I can about my thoughts on what we were given because looking too deep into things is my passion.
These are the main things I want to go over:
The actual Qian trigram
His design
The information we've been given so far
This is gonna be long, so all my rambling's under the cut.
1. The Trigram.
The Qian trigram represents Heavenâit's composed of three solid lines, also making it pure yang, and often used to symbolize all yang things or principles. From what I gathered it also represents creativity, strength, and authority.
Another interesting thing is that it's the patriarch of the Eight Trigrams as it symbolizes the father figure, connoting leaders and figures of authority. This leads me to believe Ken is similar and is the highest in authority, so to speak, of the Eight Trigrams in Mononoke.
These descriptions are really interesting to me and make me wonder how the character could correspond to them, such as "pure creative force" and "the quality of pure initiative." Not to mention Kenji Nakamura, the series' director, has used the word "bold" to describe Ken so I think these could give some insight as to what his personality could be like.
Another thing to point out is that in modern usage Qian can be applied to decision-making, and with how the Nakamaru also mentioned Ken's keen insight, I think that'll be an integral part of his character.
There's also all this from the article I was reading:
The thing that stuck out to me the most was the horse descriptions: "fine, old, lean, wild." Just based off what we have right now I think these could apply to Ken really well.
If you wanna check this out for yourself (which I recommend it's really interesting stuff), the website I used was masterseanchan.com!
2. The Design
Now onto the design!!! I really love it.
Someone already pointed out everything about it so I'll just pick out the stuff I find the most interesting.
He's wearing a lot of yellow, which is fitting since that and gold are considered the colors of heaven in China, and during times like the Tang dynasty only the emperor could wear yellow/gold which aligns well with Qian being the patriarch of the Eight Trigrams. Not to mention purple is also a color of nobility.
The purple nagatekkou he's got on his arm was typically worn by archersâand archery as a whole often symbolizes focus, which also aligns well with what the director was saying about Ken's keen insight.
He's wearing more battle-ready clothes too, the kimono is shorter and he's wearing hakama pants, likely to make it easier to move around. I'll come back to this later.
Edit: Forgot to mention that a person on Twitter pointed out how he's showing one shoulder like how Shingi does, which I think could be interesting, the heaven trigram imitating a divine being.
The head of his sword reminds me of both a bird and horse to be honest, which aligns with the horse being a symbol of Qian and the director mentioning a vulture motif, so I'm guessing it's a mix of both. There's also a lot of eyes on it which I think could be a symbol of Ken's experience, or perhaps another heaven motif considering angels are often depicted with lots of eyes.
Another thing is his eyes, his pupils are a different color than Ri and Kon's. Again, maybe it's a symbol of his experience/how long he's been a Medicine Seller?
On the other hand, though, I saw a lot of Japanese fans on Twitter point out how the head of the sword resembled the Egyptian god Anubis, which I can definitely see, and how Ken could be inspired by Egypt. It's also interesting to me how in Egypt yellow is often linked to the afterlife and the gods, not to mention Anubis being the god of the afterlife.
What I find the most interesting is his kumadori makeup. Unlike Ri and Kon, his features black and green. Black in kabuki represents evil/malevolence, and green represents the supernatural. Again, I'm gonna come back to this in a second.
As a whole his outfit seems like a motif to his character: very bold and eccentric, but underneath is a symbol of his focus. Not to mention the pose, compared to Ri and Kon, screams confidence lol.
3. The Kusuriuri.
Now onto what information we were given, and here is where I get a lot more speculative.
The "habit of boldly bearing one shoulder" part is a little funny to me, I'm guessing this guy knows his worth lmao, but anyway.
The two things that are most interesting to me is: "he undergoes a sharp transformation the instant a Mononoke appears, revealing a dual nature" and "his exorcism blade features a vulture motif and possesses the power of keen insight."
First I wanna go over the vulture motif, because vultures are often symbols of death, the afterlife, protection, and transformation. They're also well-known as opportunists. The death and afterlife stuff remind me again of the green and black in his kumadori, and the possible Anubis motif for his sword. Plus heaven and spirits kind of go hand in hand.
Then there's the "sharp transformation the instant a Mononoke appears, revealing a dual nature." So, he can be both breezy and focused, and just based off that sentence he seems to pay extra attention to Mononoke considering his sword has the power of keen insight. I actually rambled about this in a comment but I wanted to add it in a proper post with better wording.
The kumadori makeup, vulture motif, Egyptian symbolism, and heaven symbolism all make me wonder if Ken has more of a connection/interest in Mononoke than Ri and Kon do. Considering being the 'patriarch' of the Eight Trigrams means he's had to be around for awhile, and the apparent focus he puts on Mononoke.
Not to mention the more battle-ready clothes, so maybe he's more hands-on with his approach and goes toe-to-toe with Mononoke more often? I think it'd be a cool distinction from Ri and Kon.
But yeah TLDR: My theory on Ken is that he's gonna be of higher authority, but more confident and eccentric, yet he locks in the second he has his eyes on a Mononoke due to a possible fascination with them.
Please let me know if I got anything wrong :'), and I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts!
love island should introduce a "scheming eunuch" islander who is like a smart and completely asexual islander exempt from being kicked off or being made to participate in any challenges and they're just there to provide advice and be a sort of sounding board for the other islanders when they need a disinterested party to talk things through with. but the scheming eunuch has secret goals unbeknownst to anyone e.g. a cash prize for talking a certain couple into breaking up etc.
imagine if people actually took romantic consent seriously. wouldn't it be fucking awesome. i know they never will, but just. take a moment and imagine it with me
no more "just give them a chance, maybe you'll end up liking them!", no more "if you're going to reject someone, at least apologize to them!", no more shaming people for breaking up/divorcing, no more demonizing people for rejecting other peoples' romantic advances, no more shoving romance in romance repulsed peoples' face on purpose to provoke us, no more "i know we agreed to just be friends with benefits, but i thought you were going to fall in love with me eventually!", no more "i can fix them" when the only thing "wrong" with them is that they want to fuck without dating.
A friend I used to hang out with every week once confessed his feelings for me, which I didn't reciprocate. I wanted to stay friends, didn't see why we couldn't, we had been friends the whole time without any romance, why did that have to change? but he decided to stop hanging out with me.
I was heartbroken and felt tossed aside. I didn't understand why our friendship wasn't worth anything to him if he couldn't have me romantically or sexually. I felt betrayed and dehumanised, like I didn't matter to him as a person but only as a romantic prospect.
When I told other friends about it, to my surprise they all sided with him. "He is heartbroken, it's hard to get rejected" even my THERAPIST said this. It's not like I didn't empathize with him, but wasn't I rejected too? No one else could see that but me, they placed me as some sort of villain that had power over him in that situation, when all I did was set a boundary between friendship and romance. All I did was not consent to the terms he wanted for our relationship, I rejected them, my terms were different and he rejected those.
I've had my heart broken by friends over and over and it hurt the same, if not more, than any romantic heartbreak. Why is friendship undervalued next to romantic feelings?
To be honest, to this day I'm still pissed that no one sided with me on this. There's so much unraveling that needs to get done around how we view different relationships in our lives, and I feel like most people can't even scratch the surface when it comes to this questioning.
i desperately need people to stop avoiding what this post is actually about. stop derailing and trying to make it be about something else instead.
THIS POST IS ABOUT ROMANTIC CONSENT.
even if the person in question didn't want to fuck them, even if he just wanted a wholesome, purely romantic, nothing sexual at all relationship, it would STILL be fucked up to BLAME someone for rejecting that.
similarly, if someone really wanted to just fuck, but they were honest and clear about that, and handled rejection gracefully, there would be literally no issue with that.
when will you people understand what i thought i made incredibly fucking clear in the original post. the problem is not, and never was, the presence of potential sexual attraction. the problem is, and always has been, ignoring ROMANTIC CONSENT.
#people think that relationships are made of two parts#one part being ~Love~ (when it is Real it is perfect and pure and incapable of harm)#and Lust (dangerous and only ever potentially safe when tamed by a high amount of Real Love)#and thus they can only imagine that harm done in or relating to a relationship#is because of a lack of Real (romantic) Love + the presence of Lust#also i say relationship instead of just romantic relationship#because i dont think allo society is actually that good at distinguishing between types of relationships#they don't really see friendships between people who could potentially date as its own form of relationship#as much as a liminal space waiting room between being strangers and being romantic#anyways it's so fucking annoying how insistently people think that romance is only harmful because either#the person doesn't Really Love You or they ONLY want to fuck you (inherently a shallow thing to want as well!)#amatonormativity has such a grip people genuinely struggle to imagine that genuine feelings of romantic love#can be anything other than inherently good and beneficial#op you are NOT overreacting people just don't fucking understand what it's like being aroallo#and they don't give us nearly as much grace as we deserve when we get frustrated with this shit
keeping @genderkoolaid's tags because they are Important
you'll never believe. whose main blog that post was from. hi, it's me, tumblr user radioactive-yuri, formerly known as thermodynamic-comedian. this is my side blog. and a good few years ago, i made that very post on my main blog.
i have been fighting in these trenches. for YEARS.
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