Things that Make Me Smile

[keferon]

We are the Keferonlings- FEED US

This you

[crimsonsaria]

[keferon]

you have no reason to be making Sentinel that attractive

The reason is very much there you just have to absorb the symbolism to see it👍

[crimsonsaria]

I can think of a few though not sure if any of them are the right ones since you tend to surprise me and defy expectations at every turn. But first of all, it’s a classic juxtaposition between the evil on the inside and the beauty on the outside. Useful as a story device but you’re usually deeper than that so I think there definitely has to be more to it.

It’s been heavily implied that he has possibly been around the matrix or might even be currently in control of it. His angelic appearance would fit with the bearer of a divine relic theme and be a subtle flex towards his peers in the know (assuming the guess about him being involved with the care and keeping of the matrix is in any way accurate).

And finally both he and Shockwave were flight frames in the Senate and both are extremely appearance conscious. While it could just be a flight frame thing, it was mentioned at one point by Shockwave that there was once a time that they themselves would have been considered monster class by their fellow Senators and hunted. Sentinel swiftly brushed the fact away as if it didn’t matter, but what if he’s more conscious of that fact than he lets on? What if he dismissed it so rapidly because he didn’t want others to remember and start looking at him like a monster again? In this case his attention to his appearance might be to distance himself as far as possible from the “monsters”. Perhaps his looks are a response to his own internal insecurity regarding his place in the pecking order because he knows better than anyone how fickle the labeling system can be.

[keferon]

That moment when your followers realize your last post has crossed into 3 days ago territory.

🚨🚨Batten down the hatches and brace for impact! Bricks and blender blades incoming! To your battle stations this is not a drill people!🚨🚨

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeze

[crimsonsaria]

That “flying but won’t land yet” in the tags is less reassuring than you think it is!

[keferon]

Omg, please do an essay about the touch-me-nots I'D LOVE TO READ IT ALL🙏🙏

SO BASICALLY

Touch-me-nots have lots of narrative strings attached to them but my favorite is this one. They are a visual representation of Shockwave. In a symbolic way of course.

Look LOOK. LISTEN I AM EXCITED I CAN FINALLY TALK ABOUT THIS.

Here

Blurr wants Shockwave to stay with him (and maybe even love him who knows). He asks for that. He also picks a flower which immediately disappears. Shockwave does not want to live. Not like that.

It's about trying to keep something with you by just grabbing it and keeping it close because you want it. Even if your "want" hurts it.

==============

Then. Shockwave meets Damus and collects the final ingredient for the liquid death. Blurr gets very upset about that and runs away into a field of Touch-me-nots. Tries to touch them again. It obviously doesn't work.

It's about anger and denial. Flowers have very clear rules. He cannot grab them, he cannot touch them, he cannot take them without destroying them. He can't change that. No matter how much he cries and pleads.

But then. At the very end. There is a skull lying on the ground with touch-me-nots growing on it. A symbolic representation of death BUT ALSO. The object Blurr can take without destroying the flower.

It's about understanding. There is. there might just be another way. If you respect the rule. If you fulfill the wish. If you let the flower grow the way it's comfortable to grow. If you touch the death instead of touching flowers.

=============

And then finally. When Shockwave asks Blurr to destroy him. When Blurr asks if he may try something.

First of all. This.

Shockwave asks “Are you trying to break your promise?” And there is a field of flowers behind Blurr while he explains that no. No I respect your wish and I will fulfill it but would you maybe let me try a different approach?

And after that.

Blurr reaches for it. Stops. He needs that flower for his little plan. But instead of just grabbing it or asking Shockwave to grab it he kneels and puts his hands into the mud. Around the roots.

I think you know what this one is about. He understands the rules and wishes. He is ready to play not against them but around them because he wants Shockwave to stay with him so bad but at the same time he knows that his "want" must come second after Shockwave's "need". So he gets his hands dirty.

In a way. It’s a very vague foreshadowing that shows that Blurr did in fact find the solution. Found a way to keep someone he loves with him without causing harm.

It’s not yet love and closeness that he desires so bad. He still cannot really touch the flower he can only look at it. But he now has a way to keep it close.

Something like that:)

[crimsonsaria]

Amazing as always! So much lore explained all in one spot makes me feel so spoiled. But it’s also a really heartbreaking contrast with Rung who broke the rules by trying to make Prima like himself. In doing so he accidentally broke Prima and lost his love forever instead of getting to keep him like he’d intended. Rung learned the lesson too late and in his grief created a flower that would end up teaching that lesson to someone else and saving them from repeating his mistake. Full. Body. Chills!

[spicymotte]

after 4 years of drawing webcomics, this is my wisdom:

start now. now. now now now. or else you'll never draw this damn thing

it's fine if you don't have the entire story figured out yet, it'll happen naturally

draw what you want to draw!! webcomics often run for years, so you better work with something you like

don't overcomplicate things. a simple, efficient work flow is your top priority in order to stay consistent

bullshit some things. trace background refs. reuse poses. draw your character's face from different angles and just copy paste it in to save time. be smart about your work baby

take breaks if needed. webcomic burnout is real

sometimes, a panel or a page looks bad. shit happens. move on

lettering is actually really important and super hard to pull off

it's your comic. do what you want forever!!!

I'm begging you again to work smart, not hard. reuse backgrounds. use brush sets for webcomic artists. trace 3D objects. use 3D models to pose your characters

you may need hours or days to draw one panel, but people will look at it for 5-8 seconds. keep that in mind

a simple background is better than no background at all (avoiding the white void increases the quality of your work by a ton!)

sometimes the anatomy needs to be a little off to make an interesting shot/panel. that's fine, don't worry about it too much

at least 2000px canvas and 300 dpi for good quality results

it's okay to stop by the way. it's okay to move on from a project if you no longer find joy in it

[keferon]

a pickle for an answer to an art question🥒?

would you have any advice on how to improve on drawing expressions?

i swear, the way you draw them just feels so.. realistic to me and really can make the viewer understand what the character is actually feeling while also not having that "im doing this to explain the characters every thought in this moment cause i think my audience is too dumb to put the puzzle pieces together" undertone

Ooooouuuhhhh thank you I worked a lot on that skill:3

Fortunately for you I recently had to explain my art style to other artist so I have a lil bit of experience in. Well. Explaining it.

So. Welcome to the “guide for drawing expressions keferon style” I guess. First thing you’ll need is to learn to see the facial features as separate objects capable of showing emotion. And by that I mean. You need to exercise your ability to portray emotion through ONLY eyes, or ONLY eyebrows or ONLY mouth. Drawing smth like confusion is easy when you can make your character do this 🤨 with their eyebrows but drawing confusion when all you have is a mouth is a lot harder. Look at references or at other people or get a mirror to practice.

Step two is to mix the emotions. When you can show one emotion with eyes and another with mouth - well you get the opportunity to play around >:D If your character is scared and angry at the same time then you can let their eyebrows and mouth show fear and their eyes to show anger. A character can be sleepy in eyes and mouth but worried in eyebrows and wrinkled nose. A character can be brave in smile but distant and careless in eyes and eyebrows. Fun stuff. Allows quite a lot of additional layers for your viewer to notice.

Example. Look at Jazz.

Step three is uh. Well it’s kind of an overkill and my personal line to snort when it comes to drawing. Step three is to start coding emotions into separate parts of facial features. For example. The way I do it. Eyebrows can be separated into inner and outer parts. Eyes can be separated into inner and outer side of both eyelids + pupils + wrinkles around eyes. I think you get the idea. This is the part where I start having people asking what I put into those expressions and the honest answer is insanity haha. Because like. Eyes can just be sad on their own. But they can be sad in upper eyelids and slightly worried in lower eyelids and wet-almost-crying in pupils. This is also achieved through watching real life expressions and practice. It is also the level of details at which your viewer stops consciously noticing these details. The people who will see your work will not think “hey the eyes are happy and in love but the mouth is lost and angry wow this is such nuanced expression”. They will subconsciously sum all those details up into the “oh I understand what this character feels”. Details this tiny aren’t meant to be consciously noticed. You do them for the love of the game and most people will never even mention them and it’s the way they’re meant to be.

(Also I kind of don’t want to elaborate on this step using examples because it works best when you don’t notice it.)

Final step is to reject the urge to always draw your blorbo beautiful. They can be beautiful quite often but when crying? When getting scared to death? Or wheezing because they heard a good joke? In the moments where you need to show a raw emotion you need to focus on the emotion first and let the emotion be the reason for your viewer to clench their fists and go “damn this is why I love this one”. A character who begs for their bloody life doesn’t look all that believable if their facial muscles busy doing barbie doll face. It’s like when an actor has tons of botox youknow. Yeah the face is beautiful but what are they even expressing?

That’s pretty much all I do:)

[random-cockroach]

Audio might be loud! Sudden mecha au Jazz because heard ZXKAI - NO BATIDAO this morning

[velvetwyrme]

Hey. Stunticon bugs. That's all. And they're living in my walls. Dead-end's eating my lunch, Dragstrip's riding around in an RC car. Wildrider's in the RC car's passanger seat. Motormaster's fist-fighting my cat. Breakdown broke into my paint-shop and now looks G2.

Help. Me. Please.

hello again menasor...

(also, seconds before disaster:)

the idea of the pair of them riding around in a little rc car was very funny to me shgjfbsk,, like. they can turn into cars already...

[itonakoart]

great moves prowl!

[crimsonsaria]

I love Jazz and named my car after him! I recently won a small credit for betMGM sports betting that was a prize in a raffle. First of all I don’t bet and second of all I don’t do the sports thing so it was a particularly weird thing for me to get. I figured I’d just pick a team favored to win and put it all on it and maybe get some withdrawable cash I could spend on something I’d actually want. But while scrolling down through I saw a team named Jazz (don’t know what sport and don’t care lol). Jazz was the underdog but of course that’s when Autobot Jazz does his best work so maybe the same would be true for sports team Jazz. I put the whole $10 on team Jazz and they won! So now I have $33 to spend on actual fun stuff. Moral of the story? Always bet on Jazz to defy the odds and win the day!

[sentientstardustdriftinginspace]

[snowsupply]

Me: I need to finish my assignments so I can graduate

Brain: you should animate Megatron using Optimus as a yoyo...

[keferon]

I've just come to an interesting conclusion. Blurr has never memorized routes and places, not because he is poorly oriented, but because before Shockwave's summoning, Mirage had constantly confused his paths, luring him to faerie lands.

Do not underestimate him the fact that Mirage can change texts on road signs does not take away from the fact that Blurr’s navigation skills are shit:D

[crimsonsaria]

He also has zero motivation to improve his navigational skills. Having no idea where you’re going makes you super unpredictable. And an unpredictable Blurr is just that much more of a pain for Mirage to track.

[thewritingumbrellas]

Writing advice from my uni teachers:

If your dialog feels flat, rewrite the scene pretending the characters cannot at any cost say exactly what they mean. No one says “I’m mad” but they can say it in 100 other ways.

Wrote a chapter but you dislike it? Rewrite it again from memory. That way you’re only remembering the main parts and can fill in extra details. My teacher who was a playwright literally writes every single script twice because of this.

Don’t overuse metaphors, or they lose their potency. Limit yourself.

Before you write your novel, write a page of anything from your characters POV so you can get their voice right. Do this for every main character introduced.

[writerlyn]

This is legit good writing advice, especially the first bullet point! In playwriting class we did a bit where every bit of dialogue had to be an accusatory question and it was glorious.

[keferon]

Interesting that Mirage defines the currency for deals as body parts, memories, victories, even luck. And then says Blurr owes everything. But looking back to very early on in the comic in visiting Shockwave’s statue to place his trophy there Blurr says “But I owe my victories to him”, referencing Shockwave.

Might be just a cool sounding phrase. Might be a surprise tool that will help us later. Might be showcasing the fact that Blurr sold the right to his victories to someone else so now he can't have any to be his own and being a gremlin he is, he decided to get those victories in Shockwave's name like it's a magical equivalent of an offshore bank account.

[keferon]

WHEEEEEZE

[keferon]

Some of Mirage's comments are making me wonder if he doesn't know that Shockwave was Blurr's previous demon.

Actually, he might not know who Shockwave is at all since he's (presumably) a fay, and I doubt they pay much attention to the politics of normal mechs. At least, not outside of what they can use to their advantage. And why would they care about Shockwave? He was turned into a demon, there's no use remembering him specifically.

Oh regular world and fae don't really mix in terms of culture and politics and anything really. Fae have their own rules and their own laws and their own "important figures" and stuff

So yeah no Mirage doesn't know and doesn't care who any of the politicians in the Senate are. Including Shockwave:D

[crimsonsaria]

Okay but didn’t Mirage just mock Blurr about how quick Shockwave was to push away fake Blurr #2 and how his previous demons were more loyal than that? I originally took that to mean he knows Shockwave was previously Blurr’s demon, but I’m just now realizing that it might have meant that the previous demons were more loyal than Blurr’s current non-demon companion. Which one is it?? I need to know!

[transfrmrs]

Jazz: Can we kill him? Prowl: No Jazz: I can make it look like an accident Prowl: Prowl: ...How? Optimus: Prowl! Prowl: Alright, no