I have 2 questions. One : How do you draw fire like wow it looks so awesome ???? And 2 : You're a great artist so sometimes I'm like "no way, someone this great can't have someone they look up to" but do you have an artist you look up to ????
Fireis really tricky because sometimes I can draw it, but sometimes Ican’t seem to get it to look good. XD I try to experiment a lot tooso my process of how I make fire changes frequently, but these arethe ways that work best for me. Also, I am no expert, this is justthe way I do fire.
Thisis how I make fire when I’m animating because it’s a lot easier toanimate obviously. xD Basically, I just draw the outer part of thefire first, then draw in the brighter, inner parts, with the glowbeing added last. It’s pretty simple really.
Whenpainting fire, I normally do it in two different ways:
Thistype of fire is carefully painted with lots of layers. This is idealfor small flames, or for up close and more detailed fire.
Thisfire is more “sloppy” and not as carefully painted as the otherkind. This is ideal for large fires, or fire from a distance. I makeshort, circular strokes with my wrist when painting this kind. Thetype of brush really shouldn’t matter, but it’s best to use somethingmore paint-like with blending.
Referenceused Not my best fire, but it’ll do. I just use a regular pen brush and occasionally blend and erase to get the shape I want.
Thistype is a lot quicker to do. I just flick my wrist in a circularmotion to get the shape down quickly.
Iusually start off with a Lumi & shade layer for the base(which is the darkest color), then I paint another layer on top that(a lighter color this time) either set to another Lumi &Shade, or Luminosity. For the third layer, I pick the lightestcolor (very pale yellow/almost white) set on Luminosity andpaint the hottest/brightest parts of the fire.
Afterthe fire is painted, I use a soft air brush set on lumi &shade or Luminosity to give the fire a glow. Also notethat it will take a LOT of adjustments and experimentation to get ittoo look the way you want it; I’m always adjusting things myself.Also, references (both photos and videos) will help you understand how fire moves and all thedifferent types of shapes it makes.
Hopethis helps!
Foryour second question: I have many artists I look up to actually! :)Some of my idols are Akreon, Vesner, KayFedewa, Grypwolf,Fourth-Star, TamberElla, and like loads more. ;u;
I haven't done one of these kind of posts in a while, but the expressions in Rebirth were top notch, and I wanted to talk a bit about and analyze Sephiroth's different smiles, both pre and post Nibelheim.
Nibelheim itself is difficult to gauge, because SOLDIER Cloud is actually Zack, and furthermore, some of it is definitely his own wishful thinking. But one thing you can say for sure, is that they portray that Sephiroth, despite being so emotionally weary, still summons up the energy to smile at his friend.
As soon as he turns away from Zack, his smile falls, and he doesn't give one to the Mayor at all.
However, when he turns back to inform the men that they're free until sundown, he summons up another smile for them. I don't think that he's just attempting to keep their morale up, he genuinely has affection for Zack, and cares for the others. He respects them for their service, putting their lives on the line for what they think is a good cause, and Sephiroth—as we saw in Ever Crisis—learned to be a compassionate person, who cares about the lives of others, even enemies.
Of course, he's deeply distressed during this time, the despair is eating him alive. Even Cloud acknowledges(despite having not known Sephiroth on a personal level) that he just wasn't himself once they arrived. But I'm not going to talk about my theories on all the Jenova stuff right now, that's not the focus here. Even at the window, you can tell he's feeling off, but when he turns to Zack, he attempts to smile again.
Sephiroth has never enjoyed his fame, and as we learned in Ever Crisis, he didn't choose it; Shinra made up bogus achievements and declared him to be a hero before even his first field assignment, as part of their recruitment campaign. Can't argue with results, I guess—it certainly got Cloud to join up out of hero worship, right? In EC, Sephiroth admits that all he ever wanted was to be normal, something that he knows he can never have. How sad...
So when this man wants to take his picture, it's no wonder that he's over it by then, and tells him no. And rather politely, too, all things considered. But even before that, he smiles and tells Zack that as long as he does his job, their young tourguide will be safe.
But as soon as he turns his back and walks away? Yeah, that smile immediately fades.
Which certainly doesn't change when the guy takes his picture. But of course, when Zack asks Sephiroth to pose for one, he just can't say no, even though he's not super happy about it. Anyway, he continues to smile at Zack for the duration of their journey up Mt. Nibel, making an effort to talk and even cracking a couple jokes, just trying to be a good leader and keep them in good spirits.
And of course, there's the very sad bridge part, where you can tell that he's genuinely upset that he failed to save the other infantryman that got washed away. He searches for him, but comes up empty-handed. Still, he smiles for Zack and teases him about a performance assessment, since their morale is quite low now, but they need to keep going.
Honestly, the Nibelheim part of Rebirth really did an excellent job of portraying Sephiroth's inner struggle. For reference, there are only 3 points in Remake, I think, when Sephiroth drops his ever-present, sometimes affectionate(towards Cloud) and often unhinged, smile:
First, it's replaced with sheer rage as he kills President Shinra.
Second time, is when Aerith has a Cetra moment and suggests that his entire existence is "wrong".
And the third time is when he holds out his hand to Cloud at the Edge of Creation, and is rejected by him.
Anyway, back to Rebirth. Ignoring the bizarre smiles he showed us as Nibelheim was burning, as if he was in a trance and just not all there(that's a subject for a different chat), post-Nibelheim Sephiroth's smiles are interesting, too, if we consider what kind they are, depending on who he's dealing with.
For people he hates, like Tseng, it's much more unhinged looking, and very cold. You can tell there's a certain measure of satisfaction from shanking him, haha...
For someone like Aerith, who...I wouldn't exactly say that he hates her, but she's definitely in the way. I would almost say that he considers her to be actively preventing Cloud from recovering his true memories, leading him to remain as merely Sephiroth's "puppet", but that's a theory for another day. He looks at her coldly, as well, but it's a bit different. There's a bit more respect there than there was for Tseng.
And then there's Zack. Actual Zack. I feel like, deep down, he still cares about him, and has no intention of killing him. I almost sense a little...regret? Maybe? Hm. It's definitely a bit warmer of a smile. And of course, although he had many opportunities to get rid of Zack, he doesn't. Instead, he sends him off into the space between worlds safely.
And of course, last but certainly not least, is the way he smiles at Cloud. I know, I know. "But Sane, you like sefikura, so you're biased!" Look, I won't deny that. However, when you really look at it and compare his smiles, which is what this is all about, his truest smiles are always saved for Cloud. He has 2 different "flavors": pure affection and cruel affection. (There are also a few pity smiles, I think.) The former is used most of the time, whenever Cloud is in his sight, and the latter is used during moments when he's trying to control/influence him. I would almost say that he's...satisfied, yet regretful at the same time?? Like these:
And now, let's contrast that with his more genuine, affectionate smiles for Cloud... (The first shot here ⬇ can be contrasted with the shot 2 up from the bottom there ⬆, as the one above is when he's calling Cloud his puppet, and the one below is when Cloud goes to attack him and he opens his arms wider for the incoming uh...embrace.)
Remake had many interesting smiles from him, too, but that will have to be a different post, as this already has 30 screenshots. Anywho, you're free to draw your own conclusions, and not everyone reads faces in the same way, so maybe I'm nuts. Who knows? Either way, I hope you enjoyed this random, indulgent, very long post, haha. If you made it to the end, you're awesome. 💕
All screenshots were taken by me on my PS5. I won't ask for credit on them, since literally anyone can take an identical shot if they pause at the right second. (The exception are the 3 Remake shots, which were taken on PC with mods and the freecam. For those, I would appreciate credit if you use them anywhere, since I don't watermark them.)
when you look at me like that, my darling, what did you expect?
with twitter going down, and all that, I thought...perhaps I'll just post a bunch of drawings I was doing these days, and see where it goes:")
Ik this is probably the scene where the trooper got washed down the river but WHY IS HE MAKING THIS FACE HE LOOKS LIKE A CAT THAT IS BEING FORCED TO TAKE A BATH IM CRYINGGG
im back. kinda. @cosmic-mist - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
