weird question but I want to post more about my ocs on Tumblr, but I also want to turn their story into a proper comic one day once I'm skilled enough. Because of this I don't want to post too much information, since I want there to be some twists and surprises in the comic proper. How do you handle not revealing too much information for Idwtbamg, stuff that would be revealed in the hypothetical final show?
honestly i wouldn't worry about it much! i've talked about this a little bit before
💬 8 🔁 660 ❤️ 3056 · ive always had this hang up that i have to keep everything i want to turn into a commercial project super secret and p
i feel like people worry about this a lot which is fair but also when stuff like the manga -> anime pipeline exists, i think it's safe to assume that even though people might know a spoiler or what's going to happen, they'll still be excited just to see the product in a different way and care more about the execution.
but on my end, whenever i post art focusing on the cast, i keep it more to character interactions and small worldbuilding things that i think are interesting and fun for people to know without giving away the larger story. i've found solace in the fact that my audience on twitter/tumblr is a fraction of the people that go and watch the show! i've been super up front about Zira being Aika's love interest and that this is a yuri series (which could be considered a spoiler) but most users on youtube have absolutely no idea that that's the case hahaha
so truly, don't be afraid to spoil but if that's something you wanna keep close to your chest, just drawing the characters interacting in small vignettes is always a fun way to show the tone of your comic on top of familiarizing your audience with the characters.
Quick Utena doodle and some yapping under the cut.
Something that's been on my mind ever since I first watched the series and that I never really see talked about is the timing of when the animation for the sword pull switches from being pulled from Anthy to being pulled from Utena.
If I remember correctly, the switch only happens after Anthy & Utena have "The Canterella Conversation". It's only after they've both come to terms with the fact that they were both hurting each other, and furthermore forgiving each other for doing so and wanting to move forward together that the pull switches, its when trust has actually been established with each other that Utena is the one to be vulnerable and physically bear her soul to the other and trust them with it.
And what really gets me is that the sword pull doesn't hurt.
We know for a fact it CAN hurt, as seen with the Black Rose Duelist arc sword pulls from the other duelists.
Their swords come bursting to surface, in a more dramatic but similar fashion to Anthy with the Sword of Dios. And if anyone could make it hurt if she wanted to it'd be Anthy.
But unlike the Black Rose duels, it's a smooth, painless process. Barely a bump when it begins to be drawn. In a show that relies so much on subtext I feel like for Utena to have a slow, painless, even GENTLE sword pull from Anthy means a lot.
Anyways that was a lot of rambling, Happy Pride lol
I did say there was no exclusive global culture on Siren shared by humans of a certain body type, and I lied, because there is One.
The early settlers on Siren were the unaltered human workforce of a certain megacorporation. While an almost unlimited budget was poured into the dodgy gene programs, since that was why they chose to settle a planet so far out of the reach of The Authorities, everything else was done pretty cheaply, including the settling itself. In order to map out their new home planet, incredibly cheap mass-produced aircraft were used by pilots. These aircraft could be made quickly and easily at the settlement site because they lacked a flight computer or any real sensors - or any equipment at all in the cockpit. Rather than a multitude of different equipment loadouts on an aircraft that would take time and effort to swap out or maintain, the pilots instead used these visors which were universally compatible with the one-size-fits-all aircraft. It's kind of like how it's easier to just carry a phone around with a calculator app than it is to carry a phone and a calculator, even if the phone app calculator experience sucks by comparison.
The visors were the real expensive kit, each custom built to a pilot's exact needs and flight style, and they were built to last. the aircraft fell apart in the following centuries but the visors remained, hyperlight plastic powered by the planet's native star, and something interesting happened. The remains of the first settlement were largely inaccessible to anyone but longwing harpies, and these harpies had the right head shape to fit the visors. Many of the pilots had filled their visors with video and photo files from home, from Earth, like a worker decorating his cubicle with photos of his family. Some had been decorated on the outside, as well, resembling birds. The harpies that found the visors obviously tried to use them. They found themselves experiencing visions of strange worlds, recordings of long-dead pilots and ATC, and found that each visor can interface with every other one, no matter how far apart. Each visor came with its own callsign, its own name, which has remained for thousands of years - and because of this, each visor is considered by the cultures of Siren to be a named character with a distinct personality (eg. the swan visor was cygnus2, it is known now as Signastoo)
I keep posting the map and it needs to be redrawn but essentially every red triangle is an ancient telecomm tower. These became the only remaining waypoints on the visors' HUD and mapping software, meaning that 1. a true global culture could emerge, with longwings gathering at these sites, and 2. visored longwings became the gold standard for navigation on Siren. In a world that is basically just water, that's a big deal.
There exist only a few thousand visors (about 3k I'd say). The unused visors are kept in the Hall of Faces, the ancient aviation bay at the first settlement in West. Because of how water levels and land structures have changed over the years, this building exists on a mesa that rises another few thousand feet out of the water, with sheer sides, and is utterly inaccessible to anyone but a longwing harpy. When a visored harpy dies, the visor is returned here. If you want to claim a visor, you need to hold an interview with one of the elders at the site, who will test you rigorously to see if you can inhabit the character of one of the visors. If not, too bad. If you do get it, it's yours until either you die or you do something considered 'out of character' for the wearer of that particular visor. It is DEEPLY discouraged to steal a visor off anyone because it would be largely impossible, given how they all can communicate (imagine a gigantic worldwide discord server where the location & name of every person is known at all times... the drama is likely insane but at least if someone steals a visor, everyone will know about it)
not every longwing desires a visor because it comes with a lot of responsibility alongside its automatic prestige, and you can't really give it up once you have it. also there's always the possibility of being diagnosed with a super annoying, glitchy, or hated visor character lol. but among the roughly 2700 visored harpies on Siren there does exist a global culture exclusive to them. they chat to one another long-distance, engage in closed-practice ceremonies where they all get high and look at videos of Earth, and essentially become a class outside the mundanity of normal life on Siren. to the rest of the population, they basically become telepathic wizards
Terwyef's visor (first pic) is called Scrappercharlee and is one of the more common models, tho it has been decorated over the years with extra bits. Scrappercharlee is a bit busted and half the HUD is missing. Miakef's visor (second pic) Signastoo is one of the very fancy and well-known ones, it's shaped like a swan's head and likely belonged to a high-ranking pilot who could afford a bit of frippery and showmanship back in the day. Birds do not exist on Siren and harpies are mammals so the swan itself is symbolically meaningless, but the bird-style visors introduce the idea of 'a bird' in the abstract, and this has been imbued with its own form of meaning by harpies.
as far as im aware theres no way to export saved gradient maps nor is there a way to color pick from images while in the gradient map window so youre just gonna have to look at do your best to approximate the colors lol. but here are some of my maps that i use a lot. bonus points to anyone who can pinpoint which maps i used for specific comics lmao
I spend so much time carefully picking and adjusting the colors in every single drawing I make that I’d probably lose my mind if I didn’t just repeatedly push this out of my memory and pretend it’s not a thing. Why am I reblogging a blank empty post that doesn’t say anything??? Weird
good news! you can’t make sure that everyone will see the correct colors on their own device, but you can make sure your monitor is as accurate as possible for printing and sharing by calibrating it!
there are a bunch of free monitor tests, but here’s an easy one you can use. the passmark and eizo tests are also pretty good, though passmark doesn’t work in your browser. be warned that some tests may cause eye strain.
you can either use the settings built into your monitor itself or use the display color calibration settings in your operating system to adjust the settings until everything looks correct, and then enjoy your accurate colors.
Talking about lineweight!
Was doing a very detailed piece and thought it'd be a good time to say what everyone else has said far more eloquently before me!
tip me
all my advice about using real athletes to learn drawing bodies beyond hard abs, and my particular pref being wrestlers, also applies to women btw. you can draw women who r strong and not an hourglass shape. fucking do it.
kris statlander, rhea ripley (look at her SHAPE), willow nightingale, ruby soho, these r just four off the top of my head that have obvious musculature and different body types. skye blue and julia hart have more slim cheerleader style bodies as well, i REALLY wanted to put emi sakura who is fucking STOUT (adoring) in this post but i couldn't find a good demonstrative pic, the list goes on
