As mentioned here, I had pitched this landiver animatic as my final project for my Drawing class, and it was approved! >:3 So here's the finished product, the animatic (and also some extra notes below the cut 🫡)
<333 enjoy!! 💗💕✨❤️
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Notes!!!!!!
-song is "All This Making Love" by Bee Gees, and was what I initially inspired the concept (a love that has tension, a love that "spills over", like the wine there) and like literally everything about it Immediately made me think of landiver soooooo........I caved and sketched out some layouts....and to my surprise they were approved!! So that helped me conquer the sheer level of work (example: I literally did not sleep for the last three days before it was due, working on the final chunk of technical stuff......tonight will be my first proper rest in months actually lmaooooo), bc it was powered mainly by personal interest and investment 🥰 I really wanted to make this happen and I'm overjoyed I stuck through it and did, handed everything in on time, got very nice compliments from both my professor and my classmates :3333
-guys look I needed an easy to understand setting for my initial viewers (prof and class) so that's why it's this house and not the HQ (imagine a setting in which the four pretenders are rooming in this house and the sequences take place when the others are out yk yk 🫣✨ but yea if you were wondering
-heres the actual physical comic pages! Won't do it here but they're supposed to be set up vertically, one on top of the other sort of deal 💫 I used: pencil, colored pencils, inking pens, alcohol-based markers, oil pastels (my first time too!), and a touch-up here and there w a white gel pen; and yes I manually sharpie'd in the borders/bg 👊
*text was left out after much consideration bc I didn't wanna ruin the color layering (specifically the pastel) so it was added later in procreate (after individually photographing and editing every frame individually...🫡)
-uhhhhhhhh yea! That's all I can think of......hope you enjoy :]
-man do I fucking love art school /gen 🫶🫶🫶🫶🥰✨💖❤️💕✨💗
AWW YEAAA I FINISHED ITTTT (≧▽≦) AND?? THIS KINDA??? TURNED OUT PRETTY GOOD ACTUALLY???? 😳✨ I guess it's really not that big a deal...its nothing much....but Like, considering how I don't really know how to do this animatic stuff, and I definitely probably did not follow the process I'm supposed to..I'm v happy w my efforts :3 💖💕💙💖✨
also I finally got to make this?? 😭🙏 I remember first hearing the audio and how it instantly reminded me of them.....so yea! Thanks so much for dropping by, this was surprisingly a lot of work, but in the end, I'm quite happy 🥰 Enjoy :]
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NOTE about the audio....I used that one clip from the aritocats movie that people used on their own TikToks and such (as usual, I'm ages late to this trend 😭✨) but I decided to add a slightly pitched "No Other Heart" (Mac Demarco) because...it kinda fit idk 😳 hope ya like that too hehe <3
HIIIII following a recent question I got (keep lookout for another post like this answering the other one sometime in the future, y'all 😌), I'm taking this opportunity to Finally explain specifics & thoughts I have about how Landiver works as a ship in my mind, why I ship them etc. No it's not justification because I will not be Not shipping these idiots anytime soon, Landiver and Ginhawk are two of like six total ships from all my fandoms that live rent-free and undebatably permanently in my mind thanksss <3
and so yea on that note, any of yall reading this don't have to agree with everything I say!! (Pls don't tell me what you disagree with tho I'm not gonna stop you from thinking what you will and all opinions are valid esp in the realm of like, fan-interpretation of fictional characters, but I am so full of anxiety I will be afraid and scared; I am just begging, don't point out what you don't agree with just leave me beeeeee)
I also realize a lot of this is my personal interpretations of them, which may or may not be entirely accurate (tho to be fair, we only rlly did get glimpses of who the pretenders rlly are as ppl, considering how plot-heavy a series it was; I'd say Hawk got the most attention in terms of that and even he doesn't get as much expansion as I'd have liked 😭) so....there's a lot of room for said interpretation imo.
But yea anyway, I'm talking purely canon Landiver (not gonna get into my AU anytime soon because it's relatively similar to this with more focus on different details bc they have different pasts and such in that....so yea)
Without further ado, my rambles are below the cut. Apologies for any grammatical errors, I typed this on my phone on the bus going home and while laying on my bedroom floor 😭✨
Enjoy! :']
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I think they work as a ship for a bunch of reasons (I'm only gonna mention some of my thoughts about this because I don't wanna go on for too long 😳)!!!!!
One, their personalities being somewhere in the middle of "opposites" and "the same." Like not "yin and yang" kinda thing but they're also not the same type of person either. Lander might be more confident, talkative, and quicker to get emotional/heated about things compared to an exponentially more easy-going and level guy like Diver. But Diver isn't shy or unemotional, and he is most certainly confident in himself. Both of them Give 0 fucks™ but in different ways, I guess. In that regard, I feel like they also mix very well personality-wise. Lander is more interested in doing the talking, the ranting, etc. Diver says what he needs to in shorter ways in general, prefers listening and making input here and there, chuckling while Landmine fumes about some guy at work. However he might also be slightly more wordy when talking to Lander. Conversely, Lander might be more chill and show the "softer" sides of himself with Diver, the side that loses that usual "cool, confident, smooth guy" composure for example. Fumbles up his usual fast-paced talk because he's distracted w the guy in front of him (when they're in a mostly romantic mood, that is) Lander is certainly more organized and can be a little uptight about things going as they were planned to, whereas Diver (like me lmao 😭) is kind of just perpetually confused a little bit, and just going with it. But see, it doesn't seem that way because he always has this look about him that says to the outside world that he's got this and he is not fazed. He forgets stuff a lot, spaces out, dozes off, etc. Lander's got his back with that tho ✨
Diver isn't as emotional as Lander, so he's a great touchstone for Lander to center himself when he starts to panic or flip out about something. And he only lets himself do that with Diver because he feels like he can. And, being with Lander for so long has encouraged him to express himself and be emotional in his own way more often than before they met. Slowly, over time.
They have different interests for the most part, and aren't going to pretend they want to adopt every single one of each other's interests, but they have a mutual understanding of that, and enjoy the difference in tastes. So they just let each other be. Little things like: Lander's a city person, Diver's a nature guy. Lander prefers style and flashiness, Diver just wants what works, and doesn't mind. Lander is watching like five different dramas at once when he's not working his day job or out on missions, and Diver enjoys reading more (which might be because he's out on be boat or busy doing lots of really hands-on work with aquariums and such for his day job, spending less time than his partner does in an office doing paperwork). Diver will easily take a beer over an expensive wine Lander might've found, and Lander likes finer-quality alcohol, but both would be willing to have the other thing if they're hanging out together and one really wants to have their thing that night. And, they both love a good fistfight, enjoy physical touch as a primary (Diver) or secondary (Lander; his primary is actually gift-giving) love language, drinking, and collect cassette tapes together ✨
Also quick aside, but I HC they chose human bodies that put them around mid-to-late-40s. This is interesting because for example, Hawk has a body that puts him at like 23 (yes specifically 23 don't ask 😳) in human years, and Phoenix is mid-30s. Then we have the other humans characters who are actually just their age (Ginrai is 19, etc...) However, in Cybertronian years, the Pretender team are relatively like the same age, give or take a [cybertronian] year. This is another reason they are so easily connected in a way, because both in human years and cybertronian, they're around the same age, but especially as humans, they'd be not rlly old or super young. Idk how to describe it properly but maybe you know what I mean?? 😳
They are also incredibly playful with one another--always have been. Like, lowkey harassing one another (affectionately) and constantly joking around/making witty quips back and forth in their way, with a specific type of energy no one else has. In fact, they have energies that match in a way where they are as they always have been: like old friends. No one else quite gets it. They're just....a pair. Always together, which I feel like even in the anime you see them fooling around together and perpetually side by side. (Take that one bit where Diver grabs Lander and like ruffles up his hair....i love their vibe sm 😭✨)
They never descend into a serious argument because even their constant "bickering" isnt really bickering at all and more just making comebacks at one another over something on which they disagree, until one bursts into laughter and the other follows.
[Landiver in general is a whole different vibe to say, Ginhawk, both having intimately sweet moments but in very different ways.]
They are more than willing to bring it up when they don't like something/have something to talk about, not worried even for a moment what the other will think, because it will always be the safest place to simply talk it out amongst themselves. They would be hard-pressed to trust anyone else when either have somth serious to discuss. Maybe (hard maybe) Phoenix, since he's usually hanging out with those two when he's around (which is just not that often at all, I'll get into that in the other thread haha) and is somewhat a close friends...but usually it's just Lander and Diver. However even s, they rarely ever have to because they don't really have lines to cross with each other...they do not hold back when goofing around in their definitely shared sense of humor 😭💀✨
Also, I feel like it took them an extremely long time to actually formally get together just because...like, they've always been together anyway, but didn't really know how to go about,,, relationships in the official sense--if that was even something they wanted. It was on and off and on and off again for a while, Lander and Diver trying other relationships with other people for a long time (especially in the period of time after being separated to the different parts of the country once Lander got his new job over in New York and left where he'd been with Diver, again a whole separate thing I have HCs for which I touched on in my "In Relativity" fic; on that note I wanted to mention in both my AU and in canon, I HC Lander as bi and Diver as gay ✨). But they always found it didn't really....connect. over and over, both of them coming back together but not really being sure what it even was they had...and then something happens where it just clicks, and they realize, that...there isn't really anything else they should do. They do belong beside one another. They can be true only with each other, because when they are together, they are "home." As friends in a deeper, more intimate sense of that. Partners....lovers. But always friends, because they both think the whole relationship labels thing puts a wrench in the vibes. It's just very complicated to explain for them, but there's never been any kind of malice or struggle between them other than coming to the final conclusion how the answer has always been in front of them. They've known each other for centuries in our human terms, and they know they've been together forever in a sense, but sometimes it feels like they've known each other even longer.
(When they finally, formally got together, Ginrai and Phoenix just nodded to one another, like they've been waiting for this for ages, and Phoenix playfully punches Diver, who just starts laughing. Hawk, the other godmasters and the kids, are all just happy for the two)