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eddiediaaz · 7 months

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Hi! Can I ask how you did the double exposure gifs for your merlin set? They're beautiful btw!

heyy, thank you!! of course!

it's actually not very hard, the trick is to find the right shots for this. here's how i did it (reference gifset), under the cut.

for this tutorial i will be: — using photoshop cs5 on windows — assuming you know how to make gifs using the timeline — have basic coloring, sharpening, groups, and layer masks knowledge

I. CHOOSING THE RIGHT SHOTS

the ultimate trick to pull this off is to choose the right image. in order to do the double exposure, you need a silhouette shot that has these:

a defined and dark silhouette with a background that is not too busy

enough contrast between the silhouette and the background

the silhouette should take at least 50% of the space

not too much movement

here are a few examples of why they work and why they won't:

gwen: perfect example since this shot is already quite contrasted with a defined silhouette. there won't be a lot of work needed to make this one work.

merlin: not a great example because even tho there's a somewhat good contrast between him and the background, the silhouette is just too bright, not dark enough.

arthur: another good example, even if there are some bright spots on his face and armor. since he's not moving too much, you can definitely brush some black over him to make his silhouette darker (i'll explain/show later)

morgana: this one could work because the contrast is great, but of course her skintone is very bright against the black clothing. that being said, since the movement is not too bad, it could be possible to brush some black over her and move these layers with keyframes (as mentioned for arthur's example). i haven't tried it tho, but i think it would work well enough.

once you have your silhouette shot, you need another gif for the double exposure. what works best, in my opinion, are:

wide, large shots

shots with no to little camera movement (no pan, zoom, etc), but the subjects in the shot can have little movement of course

pretty cinematography/scenery shots

i find these are easier to find and make it work, it's not as "precise" as with silhouette shots. it's mostly just trial and error to see what works best with the silhouettes.

II. PREPPING THE SILHOUETTE

for the effect to work, we want a silhouette that's dark as possible. i'm gonna use the gwen and arthur shots as examples.

for the gwen gif, i started by sharpening, and then upped the contrast by quite a lot so her silhouette is mostly black, while retaining some nice details. i've used only 3 layers here:

selective color layer: in the blacks tab, playing with the black slider (value: +10)

brightness/contrast layer: added a lot of contrast (+61) and a bit of brightness (+10)

black and white layer: on top, its blending mode set to soft light and at 20% opacity. gives a bit more depth and contrast

then for the arthur example, i've also sharpened it first, and added contrast layers in this order (the skintone looks horrible, but it won't matter soon lol):

levels layer: black slider at 0, grey slider at 0.76, white slider at 104

selective color layer: in the blacks tab, black slider at +10

brightness/contrast layer: brightness at +1-, contrast at +47

black and white layer: on top, its blending mode set to soft light and at 20% opacity. gives a bit more depth and contrast

as you can see, half of his face is still quite bright. to correct that, create a new empty layer and put it between the gif and the coloring layers.

using a really soft brush and the black color, brush some black over his face and body on that new empty layer. you can edit the layer's opacity if you want, i've set mine to 71%. since arthur doesn't move much here, there's no need to keyframe this layer's position. for the morgana example, this is where you'd need to play with keyframes to make it work. here's where i'm at now after this:

you can always edit this layer later if you need, after doing the double exposure blending.

once the silhouette is all ready, you can put all layers in a group and rename it (i've renamed mine silhouette).

III. BLENDING

now the fun part! import the wide/scenery shot in photoshop, then resize it to the same height of your silhouette gif. make sure the gif is a smart object layer, and sharpen it. finally, bring this gif onto the silhouette canvas (by right clicking the smart object > duplicate layer). once you have both gifs onto your canvas, put the wide shot gif layer in a group, and set this group's blending option to screen.

you can then position the wide/scenery gif the way you like it in the canvas. this is how it looks for both examples after i've done that:

if the blending mode screen doesn't give you the best result, so you can play around with other blending modes (such as lighten and linear dodge in these particular cases), but generally speaking, screen is the real mvp here haha.

IV. COLORING

now that the double exposure effect is done, we need to color the gifs to bring them together. i went with simple coloring here, simply enhancing the colors that were already there. just make sure that the coloring layers for each gif are in their respective groups. here's how i've colored both examples:

gwen silhouette group: i added a gradient map layer on top of the contrast layers in black to green and set the blending mode to color

scenery shot group: multiple coloring layers, with a green color fill layer (blending mode set to color), with a layer mask so it only affects the top half of the gif

for the arthur gif, i did something very similar but with warmer colors. i didn't use a gradient map for arthur though:

arthur silhouette group: i made the yellow warmer, closer to orange/red, with a hue/saturation layer, and added more vibrance. didn't feel like it needed a gradient map layer here though.

wide shot group: basic coloring layers to enhance colors from the merlin & daegal shot, and an orange color fill layer set to the color blending mode.

at this point you're pretty much done. just need to add some final touches and typography (if you want).

V. FINAL TOUCHES

a small and completely optional detail, but i wanted to soften the edges of the wide gifs. to do so i've duplicated the smart object gif layer and removed the sharpening filters (right click on smart filter > clear smart filters). put this layer on top of the other smart object layers (but still below the coloring).

then with this same layer still selected, go to filter > blur > gaussian blur... > 10px. this will give you a very blurry gif, but we only want the edges of the canvas to be softer. so add a layer mask to this layer. with a very large and soft brush (mine was at 0% hardness and about 800px size), brush some black onto the layer mask to remove the blur in the middle of the gif.

you can play with this layer's opacity or gaussian blur amount if you want (by double clicking on the gaussian blur smart layer filter). here how both examples look with this gaussian blur layer:

you can also mask some of wide/scenery gifs if you'd prefer, so it shows less outside of the silhouette. just put a layer mask on that whole wide shot group and brush some black or grey on the layer mask. it's what i did for the gwen gif, with a very soft brush and i set the mask density to 72% (i kept the arthur one as is tho):

and that's how i did it! hopefully that was clear enough :)

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chickenstrangers · 5 months

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2023 gifs in review tag game

tagged by @khaotunq (here!) to post my favorite/most popular gifs throughout the year. thank you!!🩵🩵🩵

I only started making gifs partway through this year, so there was a big learning curve and i still think i'm pretty newbie but it has been a lot of fun and it's nice looking back on how much i think i've improved, though i have so much left to learn next year

i am going to ramble too much because this is my post, fair warning, forgive my self indulgence

april

this was the very beginning, back in the photopea days before i tried photoshop (i am still quite fond of photopea, 1. because it is free and 2, for stills i think it's just as good as photoshop, but i could never figure out how to make gifs look good with its dithering system. i have seen some remarkable gifmakers using photopea tho so that's a my limited skill problem, and i'm glad i used it to dip my toes into the process!)

i only posted 1 set for abaab this month which looks not good but is still a very fun scene, but this was not actually the first thing i made (see below).

may

most popular: msp finale, tinn knowing all the words to gun's song <3

favorite: moonlight chicken, my first ever gifset and the reason i got into gifmaking because i wanted to capture the way moonlight chicken visually returned to locations and shots to underline its theme of loneliness being replaced by community, which is the mlc repetitions series

june

most popular & favorite: kiss me again (2018) and the lovely way june say's goodby to his friends (i learned how to add text to gifs for this one, and not only that but timed text! i thought it would get like 5 notes. it's very messy and doesn't look great, but i'm proud that i learned something with it, and i think its very funny and that's all that matters to me)

july

it's photoshop time now!! photoshop beloved you make such beautiful gifs and also you are So Slow and my computer cannot handle you.

most popular: only friends original trailer set

favorite: jimwen looking at each other set (the start of my most belovedest of series, the followup to the first ever meta i wrote)

august

most popular: part 1 of the can't i look at you edits, cool tones edition

favorite: part 2 of the can't i look at you edits, warm toned edition (i love them both but this has two of my all time favorite wen faces)

hey its my profile picture and also i find it very funny that the Os line up with his eyes, and the second gif i love how impossibly happy they look

september

my busiest month in terms of gifs, in large part due to only friends

most popular: topmew and fire

favorite: alanwen poetry edit i spent soooo long learning keyframes for the heartbeat effect and then the ghosting effect was a happy accident thank you person in the background walking past at the right moment

(i also love my charn laws of attraction set because he was a surprise favorite character this year, i loved collecting the quotes for how he speaks of himself)

october

most popular: only friends sandray finale parallel set (it is. very very close to 1k which is. so many).

favorite: he's coming to me edit because it was so fun to make for @dudeyuri

november

most popular: not me sean and black getting along super duper well!

favorite: moonlight chicken haunted house edit, accompanying this meta/creative writing thing. i loved choosing liminal feeling shots for it and i liked how the simple typography turned out

december

most popular: a little jim and wen set i am very fond of

favorite: the moonlight chicken new years set i posted today. i love this little chicken diner

hey look i managed to mention moonlight chicken almost every month (i swear, i watched so many favorite shows this year but i loved making mlc gifs so much)

and that's that! thanks for reading if anyone read til the end.

no pressure tags for some amazingly talented creators who have made some of my favorite sets this year (if you feel like talking about some of your highlights, whether monthly or not, because you all make so much incredible work and i'd love to hear about it) : @hoppipolla @sollucets @icouldhyperfixatehim @celestial-sapphicss @chinzhilla @krystaljungs @moonkhao and anyone who wants to, consider yourself tagged <3

#tag game #bl superlatives 2023 #rambling rambles #*mine #this was a fun retrospective!#thank you to all of the amazing creative people in this community that inspired me and taught me so much

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carehounds · 1 year

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Hey, can I ask what your process was for that valentine's animation with cardinal and blue? I keep coming back to it it's really nice

Oh yeah ofc! that makes me glad uaaua Although. Im not at all in any way an experienced animator i dont animate often so my workflow may differ and change due time! none of it is has a rigid structure and i usually just do whatever feels right. I also would love to show you what i did for the valentines animation, but the file is very disorganized and slow on my end </3 so ill be using diffrent clips from in the meantime.

to start off ! keep in mind that i use Clip Studio Paint, which has a diffrent workspace from other programs and I only use 5-8 frames per second on an animation canvas with extra space. its just so i can write notes or extra details id like to add whenever im animating! keeps my brain less messy while working. heres a little visual :^) (literally just my normal workspace witb the timeline and autoaction that i can just hide wenevar i wnt)

the actual process can be summed up to Keyframe > secondary action > "inbetweens" or just little adjustments which is just duplicating still frames and moving and transforming some parts to add a little bit of bounce, > lineart and color.

I dont neccesarily follow that step by step though ! i usually just do frame by frame while going back to fix little errors I may have missed. I also tend to animate other parts of the body first (arms heads eyes) instead of drawing the entire thing one by one so itll be more digestible, especially for things like hair and face in some cases. those usually have their own dedicated folder depending on how complicated they are. Coloring is a whole nother can of worms but theres a lot of clip studio brushes that make the process easier.

again ! im not at all anywhere experienced in animating. ive only animated a few times in years and alot of what i know is just me relaying information from people more experienced. so definitely having some knowledge beforehand even passively helps alot too! Ive heard some act out scenes before putting it onto paper and i did that too. for the backround painting I dont actually do anything too fancy. all I did is paint each individual parts that i want moving, and moved it slightly around using the keyframe feature to make it look a little lively. Its sorta like a capcut transition feature more than what keyframes traditionally means. I definitely recommend derrek's tutorial on the prgram for a more clearer explanation on it!

and thats about it!!! I listen to music sometimes but other than that my process isnt really that complicated! i really just do watever when it comes to animation and experiment! its a weird learning curve but the payoff is good n swell.

#puppetmail #animation #hope this is readable #</3 #animation is usually a hit or miss for me but itdoes feel nice to make something move!#let me know if u have anything else u want me to touch up on in detail! some of these are a little oversimplified but thats it!.

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sojrner-fishsticcc · 1 year

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loona pm finished!!!

ahhhh i finally finished the texturing on that model i posted yesterday!!!! god this took so long but it was so much fun to make!!!! im really really happy with how the coloring came out, it feels both really standard and regular but also really personal so it still looks like it has a piece of me in it :) also some of the techniques i used for the tail TOTALLY PAID OFF!!! the tail looks absolutely amazing, im so happy that all the texturing and modeling worked well. im planning to go a little bit further with this model than i did the last one and giving it some custom animations, cos it turns out cpm has the ability to do that!!! problem is the animation tool sucks, cause theres no timeline its literally just individual keyframes lol. to prep this model for animation i had to rip out like all the bones and angles in the tail and legs because they have a lot of angles that build on each other so i could put them together in a way thatll make animation easier, at the cost of making the tail n stuff a bit different from the earlier screenshots but ehhh whatever. i think i forgot to prep the hair bits for animation so i might need to finish that tomorrow cos it is like suuuuper late right now. i also need to add the stuff to make armor and elytra work, but thats pretty boring so thats not my problem now. im so so excited for the animation step because the digitigrade legs are going to be AWESOME!!! theres this one mod being developed by \@rohan_furries on twitter which i really want to take inspiration from. i want to make some nice idle animations with the hair flowing, but also make the running animation lean forward more and almost be kinda feral. that would rule so so fucking hard.

anyway. enough modeling 4 tonite. im going to bed goodnigh guys

#loona fanart #loona #loona helluva boss #helluva boss #helluva loona #minecraft #minecraft mod #minecraft modding #3d model #pixel art #furry #furry art

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ivettel · 2 years

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behind the curtain ep 4

bit late with this one but i wanted to finish laundry first so here we go.. notes on this bitch

right off the bat, yes! i did rotoscoping!

what! after avoiding it since 2017!! shoutout to jennifer @antoniosvivaldi for inspiring me to do that, btw. you should absolutely check out her stuff if you haven't already--her style is so unique and refreshing!

for the most part, i think they turned out swell--after effects behaved itself for once, which like, thank fuck, because i was on a call with fio @maranello and others at 1 in the morning like "haha! i totally know what i'm doing!" narrator voice they did NOT know what they were doing, they were making educated guesses based on past horrible experiences (hence avoiding rotoscoping for years 💀).

but this is meant to be educational lol so! what is rotoscoping? simply put, it's a tracing technique. it has its roots way back in animation when tech was starting to pick up in like the 1920s and artists wanted a more efficient way of animating. rotoscoping is one of those tools that've been used differently from how it was originally intended, which is actually? so cool from like, a media arts study perspective?? because it's commonplace to use it for live-action film and vfx work as a way to mask scenes out and isolate them in addition to its original use of mapping things to isolated scenes. i won't bore you with the stuart hall encoding/decoding stuff, but just know that i find the development of digital art circa adobe dominance fascinating. i am using this century-old animation technique to impose my blorbo upon the eyes of thousands.

ANYWAY. i really liked this particular mask--it has a lot of movement but still manages to flow nicely?

me: [cuts off luke's arm] fio: i think that's his arm me: oh... my god

next up: the lightsaber

goodness. where do i start. well first of all i had a vision of something much more 2d when it comes to lightsaber anatomy, lol. but i extended my subscription for maxon and figured--why not take full advantage of this while i've still got it? so i got this 3d model of luke's lightsaber. it's untextured and unrigged and clunky but thankfully it had most of the inner parts so as far as i'm concerned i struck GOLD.

idk what i can really say in terms of like What Is 3d Modelling, because i think people have an understanding of that. so we'll go instead thru my process!

i added materials and added a null object (does that count as rigging? for something as straightforward as this?) to do a simple rotation animation on the first day...

and then i had an idea before bed to separate the parts like that one scene in the clone wars where they show how a lightsaber is assembled, except i haven't watched the scene so god knows how they animated it NKJFGNDFKJGDF. anyway the day after, this was kinda where i got:

keyframing on c4d is a Bitch because u can't just Access The Graph Editor you have to go through the dope sheet and change ur views and it's just. annoying!! coming from an after effects standpoint! but i can see how it's optimized for Actual Animation work so ughgh. we deal. onwards..

asked the team over at usergif and natalie @kenobiis suggested putting in a kyber crystal to fill out the middle. i ended up taking the og "laser" cylinder and modifying/animating it because uh THIS is the real inside of a lightsaber and i am not putting all that into a 3 second gif LMAO. but yeah i fine-tuned the animation and plopped it in after effects, then fiddled with video copilot's saber to make luke's blade.

u might notice the motion blur--that's re:vision's RSMB! i also added a little bit of depth of field with frischluft, but it doesn't show up well in gif form. speaking of things that don't render well:

there is A FUCK TON of aliasing going on. i couldn't make any anti-aliasing settings work for some reason so i ended up trying to smooth it out in ae.. to probably not a lot of effect. i got the very edges around it smoothed out with the classic gaussian blur and a matte choker method, but the black rings are killer. ugh. it's whatever, i figure i'll work something better out for the next time.

finished animation in c4d + the final gif:

the rest

everything else is fairly basic and intuitive i think? obviously used shape layers + alpha mattes, my beloved. i fucked up a little on the text because i think i made my offset keyframes backwards somewhere in the middle of the process but at that point i was too lazy to go back in and fix it. oops!

anyway if u got this far hello thank u i hope this was informative in some way. if u have any questions don't be afraid to ask :D

#behind the curtain

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joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh · 1 year

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I did literally just say I love Sonic now more than ever so gonna offset my last post about Prime being negative by mentioning a few things I really like about Prime.

One of the biggest ones is just how dope it looks! Really fun stylised 3D animation that looks smooth and has a good focus on like, keyframing and strong poses - combined with the really expressive mdoels it’s a style that really works for Sonic and I can’t wait for more even just to see how it looks.

And on visuals, I really like the character designs! Part of the reason I grind Sonic Dash so hard or why I bought the Tokyo 2020 Olympics is because getting any official opportunity to see the characters in alternate outfits is usually just super fun, especially because of how strict SEGA usually is with that stuff. Prime meanwhile comes around and has given us like 3 extra outfits for several of the core cast with still more to come! That’s just blanket really fun!

I also like that Sonic’s new looks tend to give him neat little abilities. Narratively it doesn’t amount to much but I don’t even feel like it has to - it’s a neat surprise factor/rule of cool thing that adds character to whichever universe we’re in and enhances Sonic’s reactions to those places as well. If anything it’d honestly be cool to have something like that in the games lol.

I like the voice acting a lot! I actually can’t meaningfully expand on that one lol, it just sounds really good, everyone feels well cast to me, it doesn’t feel like many awkward line reads made it through to the final thing. They are just nice. The only person I don’t adore is Eggman but even then, A) I so can’t imagine non-Mike Pollock Eggmen and B) actual Eggman is mostly absent in favour of Mister Doctor Eggman so I’m pretty much solid with it anyway.

I really enjoy New Yoke as a setting a lot. “What if the villain won?” is a classic setting for a reason, even being one that multiple pieces of Sonic media have explored, but I think New Yoke manages to feel particularly fresh even just on execution and aesthetic alone. It helps that it still feels very lived in - there’s a living, breathing population and a band of rebels that operate in secret and there’s Nine’s hideout and just like, cool shit going on lol.

For that matter I like Nine a lot. I literally put Tails as my 5th favourite Sonic character in that list I did a while back and he’s been in virtually every single Sonic game even during some of its most intense Solo Sonica eras - but he can feel very relegated to the background because of the nature of his character sometimes? So it’s really awesome to see Prime use Nine as an excuse to really let Tails play a major role with lots of actual development and stuff. This is helped doubly by the fact that, awkward pixel art aside, the flashback of his actual backstory (as canonised by Origins wow) alone helps him just feel like the real Tails we’re dealing with, just in a different setting. And yeah, the mechanical Tails are just really cool lol. Particularly a fan of the fact that it allows Tails to be up close and personal in combat again - he’s supposed to use his Tails to attack as well but lots of Sonic media has him holding back for support roles in combat, it’s nice that Prime is willing to acknowledge that, yo, Tails can throw hands. And also tails lmaoooooo

I’m not sure how best to word this part specifically also, but I personally was worried that Prime would sorta like, I guess just follow a rigid structure of x episodes in x shatterverse, grab the crystals, and then move onto the next one? The formula not really changing? But it does not do that and we kinda go back and forth between them and there’s things happening between the shatterverses and like, just in general there’s an actually good attempt to keep the structure fresh and interesting.

And the biggest thing of all is that. Prime is actually just really fun lol. There’s a lot of other good things I haven’t mentioned, but it all comes together with what I have to make a show that’s actually just plain old entertaining to watch. I didn’t feel like I was watching the new Sonic show out of obligation, I was just watching it because I genuinely liked watching it. Even my problems with it don’t feel like a huge deal because it’s so good at the moment-to-moment that I wasn’t really thinking about them while watching. Like it’s literally just a good show, and that slaps.

So fuck yeah, Prime is dope.

#sonic #2.2.23

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lookatmeallthetime · 1 year

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Hey, wanna make some mountains? In honor of the launch of the music video I just finished, here’s a tutorial on how to build out 2D layers in 3D space in after effects.

Getting Started

First of all, build your vector layers. You can build them as shape layers directly in After Effects, but I prefer Illustrator. Here’s the file where I organized the vectors for each scene:

I highly recommend using Overlord for moving shape layers back and forth between illustrator and AE. It can preserve layer positions relative to each other or center vector shapes in comps, group and ungroup layers, all kinds of nice things. But also, Adobe software costs enough as is. Look up one of the many tutorials about pasting vectors into shape layers and get your vectors in there!

Wigglin

I wanted my vector layers to squirm a little. Originally it was to mimic the effect of paper cut animation, but once I moved away from that look it was to keep the background feeling alive and, sigh, like its own character. Everything except for very curvy layers (like the bridge in the first scene) has Wiggle Paths > Corners applied to it as a Shape Layer effect. This tutorial by Ben Marriott helped me get the wiggle paths + posterize time cutout effect I was looking for.

In order to keep the amount of wigglin’ consistent from scene to scene, I stored all my layer styles in their own precomp with a slider effect attached, applied Wiggle Paths to each vector, then connected the layer properties with the pickwhip. I ended up with an expression like

this = comp(“Wiggle control comp”).layer(“Wiggle parent”).effect(“Detail Slider”);

Apply it to the Detail attribute of your Wiggle Paths shape effect, and you can adjust the intensity of the look across multiple comps!

Parallax

I’m guessing you’re here for the parallax effect and notes on laying out out vector shapes and textures in 3D space. This tutorial from Camp Keyframe lays it out better than I could, but here’s the short version:

1. Set all your layers to 3D

2. Set your workspace to 2 views and select top view so you can see how your elements are positioned on the z-index

3. Make a null, set it to 3D, and make a camera.

4. Parent null to camera and adjust the position so its z-index matches the z of the camera.

5. Parent null to camera and use null for camera controls hereafter.

6. Parent all unparented layers to null, adjust the null’s scale property, and unparent your layers once they’re where you want them. What we’re doing here is scaling layers as we push them back in the frame, preserving the layout of our original vector comps while arranging them in 3D space. (Even shorter version - mountains are big but far away, rocks are small but close up.)

7. Once your layers are all unparented, move your null around to text the parallax view. Now you can move your camera to pan left and your layers will respond.

Two side notes:

1. If you want an element to follow the motion of the camera, leave it parented to the null and it will stay where you put it in the frame as the background moves.

2. You see that little pixelated line in your switches? That pre-rasterizes your layers. This makes render times way faster because it’s inserting your precomp as a 2D plane, but if you want to blend scenes, turn it off to use your precomps in 3D space.

One more thing!

Even if two elements on screen aren’t touching, you’ll still get nasty collision renders if they’re on the same z-index. Select everything and press P to show your element’s position, and make sure the z is different for each of them.

Final step: textures!

Let me start by saying I did this step incorrectly on this project. If I could do it again, I’d export my shape layers to Procreate, use them as clipping masks, and scribble on them real nice and export them as transparent 2x pngs.

What I did instead was try to get spray and scribble and brush textures in Illustrator. Illustrator does not want to do this, it doesn’t like doing this, and it didn’t like me much by the end of the process. The one benefit was it was easy to name them the same as their corresponding shape layer, which made compositing easier.

Once you’ve imported them as layers, not a png series), it’s just a matter of copying and pasting the scale data (you can copy all dimensions at once if you select the attribute name rather than any one value) and position data. Make sure to set your texture layers to 3D and watch for z-index collisions!

Closing thoughts

I wrote this up in order to be useful to the community and find other folks who are at or near where I am as I learn After Effects. If this was useful to you or there’s something you think would be interesting, please comment or share your work!

#after effects #animation #tutorial #after effects tutorial #compositing

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animehouse-moe · 8 months

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September Art Book Haul

Yeah, a veritable mountain of art books in this haul. It's part of why it's taken me so long to make a post for it, because where do I really begin? Well, the best that I could come up with was to just sorta dive into a few of the "most interesting" entries specifically, while still detailing just what it is that I've got here. So, I'll try me best to grab the most interesting stuff and explain that with this post.

Well, in image number one we've got some cool stuff, two pairs of key animation books for their respective series. Shockingly, the Haruhi set was cheaper than the Yuru Camp, though the latter was also still sealed/brand new and is marginally thicker than the Haruhi ones. I wouldn't say there's anything really "special" with them so I'll skip towards the next image.

A bit more going on here, as each book is from a different series. The Uchouten Kazoku setting material book is massive, filled to the brim with all sorts of stuff. Definitely makes me want to get the key animation collections and other art books. Also, finally got the first season board/keyframe collection for UBW (and at a good price!). Been searching for a set for absolutely forever, and only in July of this year was a friend of mine able to find the second season one for me for cheap (they were in Japan on vacation). Then there's the little Love Lab board collection, nothing special. I think the most interesting is the Ground Control To Psychoelectric Girl art book. When I first got it I was worried I'd somehow accidentally purchased a Blu-Ray for the series, but it's just the packaging. The disc shaped thing is pretty cool though, it unfolds to show a bunch of different keyframes/Layouts, a nice touch for sure.

Anyways, moving on we've got another hodgepodge of stuff. We've got another Love Lab art book, an Umaru art book (a shame they only did one for the second season), a Lycoris Recoil setting material collection (despite my issues with the story, the visual work done is solid), and a Kanon art book. No, it's not for the anime, I couldn't find one, but I did find one for the visual novel. It exists on the rarer side of KyoAni's works that are adapted, and one of the three visual novels that they've adapted (all of which were very early on in KyoAni's life). Anyways, I suppose you could say it's... rather different, which is interesting. I always find it intriguing how visual novel adaptations go, in terms of timelines, choosing routes, removing and adding content, and stripping the mature scenes. For that last reason, I'm not going to show any of the art here.

Onto the next batch! This one is very cool, lots of interesting stuff in here. The Madogatari 40th anniversary exhibition art book might just be my favorite in all of the haul. So much art and content from the history of Shaft that you won't find anywhere else. Finally getting to see production material for And Yet The Town Moves is lovely. Similarly, Kaneko Yuuji's art book is incredibly interesting because it shows their process for some of the super awesome concept art for Godzilla Singular Point. While I don't believe the remaining two to be super important in regards to pictures, they're both still very impressive art books. It's been a while since I last watched Log Horizon, but the environment art displayed in its collection is incredibly beautiful, and I mean Fate/Zero, need I say more?

Alright, even more Fate! I've got a lot of art books for the anime, so when I saw a good deal on the box set for the VN art, I knew I had to grab it. It's a shame the box set was only vols 1-3 (plus the character art book), so vols 4 and 5 are sold separately. An incredible treasure trove of content in regards to the series in all kinds of instances and approaches (and of course a fair share of horny). Alongside it, I'm finally making a dent in my Garden of Sinners keyframe collections again. I've know got 3 out of the 8 or 9 volumes available, so at best I'm only a third of the way there. Such a pain to find, but they're surprisingly reasonable in terms of pricing when you do find them.

And last but not least, Shirobako. Even though I got 4 volumes, and even though it was dirt cheap (something like 35CAD for all of them), it's still a drop in the bucket to the amount remaining out there. Anyways, in the image there's the: setting material collection (bottom right), the two keyframe collections for the first season (top and bottom left), and the second mini fan book (top right). A load of content for sure, and lots of great details and whatnot.

All in all, it's an art book haul that fills a lot of gaps in my collection, in more than a few ways. Getting sets for series that I'm a fan of, rounding out collections for certain studios or series. It gets a lot done, and without entirely breaking the bank (I chose seamail to save a solid chunk on shipping). In the coming days/weeks I'd really like to take a deeper dive into some of the more interesting art books to show what they're all about (for example, Kaneko Yuuji did environment art for Eve Music Videos!), so I'll try to keep my promise on that and show some more interesting stuff.

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alexsalteranim3fmp · 1 year

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Animating in After Effects

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kzl8VVWL4aWy3HIkqhQpMlN5WKIXrTq0/view?usp=sharing

Link to my current ‘animatic’ / tests from using after effects tutorials

Over the past couple of days, Ive been attempting to compile all drawn and 2D animated elements in after effects. This is a software I am relatively new to, and required a lot of YouTube and online tutorials to accomplish what I was after, however I think the effect is really effective.

There are two main scenes/ shots I should go over from this video, about how I’ve created and what should still be left to improve;

SCENE 2 - First look inside For sake of linearity, ill start with this as its what i out most time into, and equally what I worked on first. This was actually relatively simple, as a lot of planning and components had already been figured out prior. I always knew of how compositionally, the buildings would move and prior to after effects had drafted quickly and roughly in photoshop using tween options.

I looked into using the 3D camera in after effects, as I previously had seen this almost twisting camera motion, that rotates the camera as it moves in. This I felt would work well with the two buildings on side moving out of shot. I also liked the vertical parallax effect that the mid ground and background had when moved at separate rates. The thing I especially liked about the 3D camera however was how I could separate different layers to be attached to the camera, or change the plane/heirarchy etc, this allowed certain things to be moved very easily.

By playing the animations, and having the automated zoom effects, the whole intro sequence felt too clean and automated. And so I added some blur and soft blue gradients that moved along with the foreground buildings. This felt like it was entering inside, and compiled it nicely with the forward movements.

SCENE 1 - Outside the festival This shot was a lot tricker, as it was essentially just the building illustration and a separated foreground. I managed to construct the prior scene a lot easier I knew going in exactly what I was after, however in this scene - the camera movement of going upwards, reaching the top of the building felt too clean and amateurish. This meant that I needed to work on two key areas. The main element, the foreground felt too static, as I moved it down with keyframes, the pieces felt like they were moved in automation, and was weird to look at - there was no ‘human touch’ to it.

To combat this, I added a quickly drafted animation of leaves and foliage in the foreground. Opening away, as the camera moved forward. This created a nice balance of movement from all angles, and didn't cause too much chaos. The balance of 2d animation and 3d movement, eased the eye. If either element were done the same way together, it would run into the same print problems, but because of squash and stretch style quick movements it created an easy solution, without having to construct an extra scene. The other fix, was by moving the 3D camera in a curved upwards motion - causing the camera to be from someones perspective, still acting on the ground. It helped show the camera not as some sentient being flying upwards and made the movement more natural.

youtube

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secretgreys · 2 years

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Toon boom vs adobe animate

#Toon boom vs adobe animate full#

#Toon boom vs adobe animate software#

#Toon boom vs adobe animate professional#

#Toon boom vs adobe animate tv#

#Toon boom vs adobe animate free#

#Toon boom vs adobe animate software#

Some animation software does not have drawing tools, and that is completely fine if you're working with assets from a third party.īut if you have to make your own assets, you're going to need drawing tools, and you'll need lots of them! If you're inexperienced with animation or need a hasty animation process, this is definitely something to look out for.

#Toon boom vs adobe animate free#

Templates make it easier for you to get started animating with pre-created characters, backgrounds, and assets free to use. If you're not an experienced animator, preloaded templates can be a gift sent from god. We have listed a few features that you should consider in your animation software, depending on your needs! Preloaded templates You should look out for the specific features that tend to your needs. Features to look out for in animation software?Įvery animation software is different, and no animation software can be considered the all-in-one perfect software. Once you get the hang of it, you have a fast animation process.

#Toon boom vs adobe animate professional#

Purpose: Great for creating professional 2D animations with 3D features. Skill level: Intermediate / Professionals

Fast animations (once you get the hang of it).

Gizmo Face Key editing tool for facial features.

360 Head creator for easy angle shifting.

Purpose: Synfig Studio is great for creating professional-grade animations, especially for making cutout animations.

Advanced layering system with over 50 layers.

Purpose: Procreate is the best animation software you will find on an iPad, and it is great for beginners and professionals alike. Skill level: Beginner / Intermediate / Professionals Purpose: CelAction2D is great for professional animators, and its Studio version has nice production workflow features. Price: $409 one-time-fee Animator edition / $745 one-time-fee for Professional edition / $895 per year for Studio edition.

Export both animations and still images.

Real-time animation preview in the software.

Advanced syncing technology for multiple scenes.

Whether it's short films, feature films, or videos. Purpose: The software is great for professionally made animations.

Not as many tools and features as competitors.

#Toon boom vs adobe animate tv#

Used for TV shows like The Simpsons and Rick and Morty. You can easily implement 3D elements to your 2D characters if needed. Purpose: It's great for animated 2D tv-shows and all types of 2D animations. Price: $25/month to $115/month, depending on the version.

Integration with other graphical software like Photoshop.

Advanced palettes, vector & bitmap drawing, and painting tools.

Implement 3D animations to 2D elements.

It has a great keymapping feature that makes it easy to make any type of 3D animation. Purpose: Cinema4D is great for beginners and professionals alike as it offers a large array of tools and features.

Powerslider with great keyframing feature.

It's also a good software for aspiring animators because it's free. Purpose: Blender is great for any professional animation project.

Amazing brush selection for creating realistic animations.

People use it to create assets for films, tv-shows, and games. Purpose: Autodesk Maya, or just Maya, is a great animation software for creating 3D animations.

With Bifrost, you can create incredibly realistic environments.

XGen grooming feature allows you to create layers of fur and hair.

There are plenty of features to make animations for teaching purposes. Purpose: Powtoon is great to use for both marketers and educators alike. Price: Free plan with limited features / Paid plan $19/month

Large projects can become a slow process.

Advanced control of the animation and customization of characters.

With free-to-use assets, it is great for small freelance or marketing projects. Purpose: VistaCreate is easy to get into.

#Toon boom vs adobe animate full#

Price: Free Version with some of the features / Paid version with full features for $10/month.

Good for many marketing formats (social media, presentations, and so on).

Purpose: The Adobe Animate is great for animating 2D, but it is mainly used by beginners or hobbyists.

Asset coding and design all in one software.

Vector brushes that are great for creating 2D vector graphics.

Adobe Animate virtual camera makes it easier to make great camera movements.

This will give you an idea of structuring a frame and story. If you're new to the world of visual creative projects and storytelling, consider reading our article on the basics of filmmaking. In this way, it should be easier for you to decide on what animation software fits your needs! We have gathered the 12 best animation software on the market and their strengths and weaknesses. Have you considered starting your animation journey but just found it too hard to find the best animation software for you? Then look no further!

#Toon boom vs adobe animate

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twh-news · 3 years

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How the VFX Team Behind Marvel’s ‘Loki’ Brought Miss Minutes to Life | Variety

As Marvel continues dipping its toes in TV — snagging 28 Emmy nominations in the process — its latest venture, the Disney Plus miniseries “Loki,” is being hailed as one of the studio’s most unique anti-hero stories to date.

While Tom Hiddleston steals the show as the titular character, perhaps most captivating is the Time Variance Authority (TVA)’s cute, conniving animated mascot, Miss Minutes.

The character voiced by Tara Strong, starts off as warm and bubbly, but as the series progresses, she’s not all she seems to be.

With only a couple of rough sketches of the character, Marvel recruited Luma Pictures to bring Miss Minutes to life, in all her wonderful (and terrifying) forms. Luma VFX supervisor Jared Simeth spoke to Variety about the inspirations behind Miss Minutes and how the team’s animation styles evolved along with the character.

Marvel gave you sketches of Miss Minutes and basically said, “Bring her to life.” Tell me about that process.

Marvel gave us two concept images of Miss Minutes and some animatics for different sequences as a starting point for motion. The brief was basically, “Here’s the character, we’re trying to figure out exactly what the movement should be. Find some inspiration, do some tests and we’ll start figuring out what the character of Miss Minutes is.”

They mentioned Felix the Cat as a starting point, which has a very steppy motion — not very fluid. We also found a lot of different references, earlier animations from the ’20s and ’30s like Betty Boop, which has a much more fluid animation and stretchy arms. We did a bunch of tests and then focused more on a Felix the Cat-type motion, which is what we ended up with.

Miss Minutes’ animation style changes throughout the show, from a more hand-drawn vibe to this glowing 3D model. What was it like creating completely different visuals for the same character?

It was fun in general just working on Miss Minutes, who looks very different from any other Marvel cartoon. And it was fun to play around with the different ways we could adapt her. The first time you see her is in the propaganda video, where we keep it very basic and very steppy. Once she comes into the real world as the holographic portion, she is a little bit more fluid, not quite as steppy, but still in that Felix the Cat vibe for the first few episodes. But as you learn more about the TVA, we see her not just as this mascot, especially toward the end of the series when we understand that she knows more about this than we do and she has an agenda of her own. When she becomes more sinister than we initially think, she starts getting a bit more naturalistic, a little bit more dramatic. Instead of having everything be keyframed, we actually did some motion capture to get a little bit more nuance into the role, which is not normal for cartoon characters. So we’re kind of playing those two things against each other, because she is a cartoon character with a more nuanced performance.

The propaganda video has become a fan-favorite scene of “Loki.” What was the inspiration behind animating it?

Marvel basically gave us a rough animatic, with cut together film footage and little clips from old propaganda animations with a voiceover. We had to come up with how to make it into a 2D animated version that has a nice clean look throughout.

At the same time, they’re also working on the script and figuring out what points they want to hit in the video — what is the TVA, how the world works within the Marvel Universe, etc. — so we had a back-and-forth about which points can be clear and which can be a little bit more ambiguous and whatnot, so there’s also a back-and-forth with the style. Early on, Felix the Cat was the style for both the animation of Miss Minutes and the visual style of the propaganda piece. But that was deemed a little bit too kind of kid-sy, so we started looking into something more grown-up, like “Jonny Quest” and Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

We’d do a design for the Timekeepers in that style, and it seemed too realistic, so we ventured into the style of “The Flintstones,” and that seemed too familiar, so we went for more obscure references. There are these propaganda pieces from the 1950s called “A Is For Atom,” which are about atomic energy, and “Destination Earth,” which is about oil and made by the same company. It has a 1950s style but still feels unique, and so that was our Bible in getting the historical feel. It was really fun to make it almost like a period piece film but in the Marvel Universe.

How did you go about creating facial expressions for the character?

We had to come up with all those nuances just from a few concept images. Her performance goes to so many different levels of character, and whether it’s angry or sad or conniving, it was fun to come up with those looks.

We did a first pass, which was just 2D, of all the main expressions she might have, and then we took that and fleshed it out into our 3D version of Miss Minutes. It was rendered as a 2D-looking character, but we created it all in 3D. It was fun to take one concept, figure out all the different expressions and how our character evolves, and then build that into our assets.

What was the most challenging part of Miss Minutes?

Getting the 3D version to feel hand-drawn was a challenge. We have a lot of tools, but making sure that it looks like a 2D creation and not a 3D creation was definitely a challenge. And it was a fun challenge to figure out all the different versions of her.

At first glance, Miss Minutes serves a similar purpose as Mr. D.N.A. from “Jurassic Park.” Was that a reference?

It was definitely on our minds from the beginning when they sent us the rough animatic. Miss Minutes has a similar role, but it’s more expanded upon than Mr. D.N.A. But they both don’t quite jive with everything going on and feel a little out of place. Especially for the propaganda film, we referenced Mr. D.N.A., as they’re both little helpers who are showing you the way.

#loki #loki series #Article #special effects #Special fx #Luma Pictures #Variety

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kaiowut99 · 3 years

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Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters GX Episodes 65 and 66 Subbed (Finalized)

(Check out my Subbed!GX Stream Masterpost!)

Hell Kaiser Ryou! Chimeratech Overdragon

Since his defeat to Ed in the Pro Leagues, the life in Kaiser Ryou has faded. But at the invitation of a suspicious promoter, he participates in an underground duel--duels in which, crucially, one risks their life to treat their savage audience to a show. As Acidic Last Machine Virus causes his Machine-Types like Cyber Dragon to rust, the Kaiser is not only cut off from summoning any Monsters, but it causes him to take damage. With each drop in his LP, an electric current flows through his body, exciting the spectators...

Judai’s First Dream Duel!

Lost in the forest, Judai’s consciousness starts to fade from hunger, causing him to reminisce about his duels thus far--taking down Instructor Chronos’s Ancient Gear Golem with Flame Wingman during his Entrance Exam, battling the then-Blue elite Manjoume and his V-to-Z Dragon Catapult Cannon shortly after his enrollment, battling Misawa’s seventh deck with the right to represent the Academia on the line, and his first loss in the face of Kaiser Ryou’s Cyber End Dragon...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*crashes onto your TL months late with non-corporate coffee*

And these two are finally up and finalized! Sorry for the wait, if you were looking forward to ‘em--as I mentioned in my post on Sunday, they were pushed back a bit while I did one final lookover on 1-64′s scripts and hardsubs so I could actually call them “finalized.” I’d started to get them out of the way while waiting for some potential editing help, then just decided to finish it after scrapping the last little thing I hoped to work on (I planned to break briefly after 66 to do these re-finalizations anyway, but the timing happened to work out). More details there.

But leaving that aside, here we have a pretty popular episode in Hell Kaiser Ryou’s debut, as he’s pushed to the brink by Mad Dog Inukai after Monkey Monkey Mountain Saruyama invites him to his first underground duel. They do a really good job of portraying Ryou as having lost his mojo post-Ed, showing a realistic view of what the big leagues in sports are like when that happens to you and you lose out on sponsorships/etc, and so when he gets cornered and Saruyama drills into him how he never once thought of winning since that duel, wanting to just stick with his respectful dueling, a spark lights up in him and... well, RIP Mad Dog. (Also, s/o to Takeshi Maeda for really selling Ryou’s shift in mindset by the end, and to his dub VA for sounding similarly good, imo.)

66 is probably less popular in comparison, treating us to our first clipshow of the series, though 66 episodes in isn’t a bad time (could be worse, VRAINS jk). It’s endearing enough, though--kinda nice seeing SAL again; Judai’s hunger-induced visions give us Chronos, Misawa, and Manjoume making monkey noises; and the duels featured were important for Judai early on. I also like the bit of new animation as vision!Ryou follows up with Judai about respecting his opponents; goes with what I’d noticed before about Judai adding his Fusion Undone/De-Fusion strategy to his own dueling after losing to him. (also Judai making a signpost sweatdrop from his aloofness pls)

Part of the initial delay with these were the footage fixes I wanted to work on, as well as a couple visual translations here/there which were fun to work on. Really want to thank @paradoxi-kay for their great work as always in helping to translate the cover of the copy of Duel Magazine that Judai comes across early in 65, and starting the one on Shou’s copy that I finished up. List of everything worked on below the cut, as usual, if you’re curious.

Enjoy, folks! I’ve gotten some work started on 67 already, and my plan is to try and work on some double releases to make up a bit of time, lol. I’ll be posting these two on NAC in the next couple of days along with the re-finalized hardsubs and scripts/DVDRips; while I work on getting 67 and 68 done, I’ll also start some work on prepping softsub MKVs (also to go up on NAC) for everything I’ve fully finalized, since it’s been a while on that front.

Fixes/Edits! (65)

As Judai wanders in the forest early in the episode, he comes across a stack of old Duel Magazines; the front cover shows Ryou and is an issue from his winning streak days before his more recent loss to Ed. Thanks to @paradoxi-kay‘s great work in typesetting my translation onto the cover I blanked (which I detailed here), you’ll see it in English in the hardsub above. The translation was first applied to the close-up of the cover that comes after #2 below, and then I took the translated cover and made it its own image that I put into the earlier shot as Judai approaches it while they’re all still tied up (detailed here). The text reads, “Exclusive!! Kaiser Ryou Marufuji / Breaking down his Cyber Dragon deck!!! / In this issue: / -Duelists Du Jour / -Pro League Battle Data! / -Reader-Submitted Best Duels! / -Strategic Attack Decks by Type!” (Really appreciated Kay’s input on “Du Jour” because my original translation for that, “Duelists Who Are All the Rage,” wasn’t as catchy, lol.)

As Judai picks up one of the older Duel Magazines and flips it open, we see on the back cover an ad featuring the three Phantasms--it’s actually an in-show ad for Shadows of Infinity (since the episode aired around the time the pack came out in Japan); I detailed the process in blanking and translating it here (shared above). The ad reads, "The Three Phantasms Descend!" featuring Uria and Raviel’s names on their images.

As we go to the Red dorm as Shou narrates about the Kaiser’s slump, we see a magazine page describing what happened to him since his loss to Ed; I covered my blanking/translating this in the link shared in #2.

We then see that it’s Shou reading the page from his own copy of Duel Magazine, this one more recent than Judai’s featuring Ed on the cover, though it features the same SOI/Phantasms ad on its back cover (now showing Hamon and its name as well). Like with Judai’s issue, I used the Japanese cover and the dub’s edit as reference to just redraw Ed and Diamondguy enough to remove Ed’s name; Kay had started the translation placement and I finished it up. For the SOI ad, like with #2, I added in the dub’s edit in pieces, tweaking it to match the original image more (since they again oddly edited the text out or redrew Uria/et al weirdly to do so). We do now see more of the ad which shows that the trio’s names are on each of them, the English of which I added.

As Asuka snatches the magazine from Shou to work on cheering him up, to be consistent, I also worked in these cover translations to the magazine as she lifts then curls it up, using the dub’s blanked Phantasms edit as a base that I touched up a bit while adding back the Japanese cards. Detailed more in #2′s link. (We now also see that the ad reads on, “New! Shadow of Infinity - On Sale November 11th [2005]!”; the IRL booster pack came out in Japan on Nov. 17th, 2005, a few weeks before 65 aired.)

Asuka then lifts the curled-up magazine into view in a close-up, with the SOI/Phantasms ad visible which I also applied my translations above to as needed, using the dub’s blank edit as a base that I redrew parts of to touch up and match the Japanese image more. Detailed more in #2′s link.

As Ryou meets Monkey Saruyama, he introduces himself by handing out his business card reading, "Saruyama Promotion - Representative Monkey Saruyama;" as detailed in #2′s link, I cleaned it up using Photoshop’s Clone Tool, then slapped the translation on using Calibri as the font.

As Ryou contemplates attacking Acid Slime with his Cyber Dragon and Mad Dog Inukai taunts him, as Mad Dog then slides in on a split-screen to “clear his doubts,” there’s a quick frame as Inukai takes over the screen where there’s a gap between his pecs and the split-screen edge. I fixed it by just drawing in the rest of his chest in Photoshop to fill his side of the split-screen.

As Inukai starts his turn and activates his Contingency Fee Magic Card, there’s a frame where, as he’s sliding his hand with the card into the shot, the card itself slides ahead in his hand before his hand does; as a result, you can see a bit of the background just under the card before his hand catches up to the card in the next frame. I fixed this by just duplicating the first frame here over it in Vegas.

Two here--first, after Ryou has his Proto Cyber Dragon attack Clone Slime, as Inukai begins to explain its effect, there’s a quick frame before the shot goes from a close-up to a slow zoom as he moves where his neck vanishes (new meme format go); I fixed this by just duplicating the previous frame in Vegas, while also correcting one of his looping lip-flap frames so that the scar on his chin is above the shading under his lip. Then, as Inukai goes into Clone Slime’s effect and the shot slowly zooms out, we see Clone Slime on his Disk in Attack Mode when it’s in Defense Mode right now; fixed it by placing a proxy in Defense in AfterEffects for a frame, then re-keyframing that frame to the zoom-out in Vegas to put it in place.

After Acid Slime slips out of Inukai’s Cemetery as Clone Slime’s effect activates, Inukai moves to grab it before the two Slimes switch out, but Clone Slime’s still in Attack Mode on his Disk; fixed by placing the Defense-Mode proxy over it in AE, then moving it as he moves his Disk and applying a brief brightness increase as the light from Clone Slime being replaced with Acid Slime grazes it.

As Proto Cyber Dragon’s attack approaches Acid Slime in a quick shot, the card under it in Defense Mode is reversed (the name box should face to the left to match how it’s placed on his Disk); fixed by first applying the correctly-facing proxy in AfterEffects and moving it as the shot moves, then masking Acid Slime back in over it, along with the light coming from the attack as it starts to shine over its card.

As Ryou explains Overload Fusion’s effect, just before it starts to zoom out as he then chooses the six Monsters he’ll fuse, there are a few frames I noticed where Ryou’s whooshing hair throughout this shot suddenly stops whooshing; I fixed it by just masking in his whooshing hair from the previous frames for a few.

As Ryou taunts Inukai about how his Acidic Last Machine Virus will bother him no more, Inukai starts to slide in on a split-screen, but until his split-screen has fully slid in, there’s no border on its edge; I fixed it in Vegas by first masking out the border once it’s fully slid in, then moving it in another video layer with his split-screen for those nine frames.

As Ryou explains Chimeratech Overdragon’s multiple attacks, we see it reversed on his Disk; fixed by slapping on the correctly-facing proxy in AfterEffects, then re-keyframing it to the slow zoom in Vegas for the 94 frames it zooms out in (phew).

One error that I hoped to fix but scrapped happens as Chimeratech Overdragon’s first attack closes in on Inukai’s Multiple Slime, where we see a Defense-Mode card under it despite it being in Attack Mode the way Inukai summoned it (and since he then takes damage from the attack); couldn’t quite figure out how to light up the floor I’d redrawn under it with the ensuing explosion, and had sought a bit of help to get it right but ultimately that fell through. (Incidentally, not only did the dub not catch this as they dubified its card, but they reversed the card, at that, lol.)

Fixes/Edits! (66)

(Note: These are all flashback-related, and I detailed most of them [including a few new ones] in my post from Sunday that I linked just under the summaries; I went on to apply the fixes I’d applied in 66 to the respective episodes, so I’ll be brief here. Reinserted fixes from a while back are in italics.)

(Episode 1 Flashback) I reinserted the fix I did to replace the blank Normal Monster on Judai’s Disk in Flame Wingman’s spot with its card as Antique Gear Golem crashes onto Chronos. [Ep. 1 Flashback End]

(Episode 22 Flashback) As Misawa attacks with Litmus Death Swordsman to start his flashback, I reinserted the fix I did to detail the blank cards on his Disk with Diamond Dragon and Litmus Death.

As Misawa finishes explaining Wingbeat of Giant Dragon’s effect and it zooms out to Litmus Death, I reinserted my fix to his reversed card on Misawa’s Disk to flip it right-side-up.

Reinserted my fix to the repeat of #3 as Skyscraper fades.

Reinserted my fix to another repeat as Misawa explains Spirit Barrier’s effect.

R-R-Reinserted my fix to the r-r-repeat again as we see Misawa’s Disk while Judai explains Cyclone Boomerang’s effect (gotta love reused animation!) [Ep. 22 Flashback End]

(Episode 4 Flashback) As Judai prods Manjoume into choosing a card from his hand for A Hero Appears’s effect, I fixed Manjoume’s blazer looking semi-faded for a frame on his split-screen.

As Judai’s LP take a hit from V-to-Z destroying Burstlady, I fixed the four frames where the upper part of his Disk is missing the little bottom part that extends out a bit and Judai’s vanishing Disk wrist grip.

A bit complex, but I fixed Judai’s briefly-still-missing-then-vanishing-again wrist grip, the shading near his Cemetery slot, Judai’s arm becoming part of his Disk, and his wrist grip suddenly consuming his whole wrist. (Detailed in that Sunday post)

Reinserted my fix to the Attack-Mode Winged Kuriboh on Judai’s Disk to put it in Defense Mode as he discards two to activate Evolutionary/Transcendent Wings.

As Judai swings his arm around telling Winged Kuriboh LV10 to “send [V-to-Z’s] energy right back” at Manjoume, I reinserted my fix to put its Defense-Mode card in the spot on his Disk colored like the Monster Zone it’s on for a few frames.

A bit complex again recycling the Judai shot in #9, but I fixed his again-vanishing Disk wrist grip and half-Disk arm, his wrist grip suddenly consuming his whole wrist again, and his yet-again-vanished wrist grip, miscolored undershirt, and his half-Disk elbow while restoring some previous detail to his Disk. (Detailed in that Sunday post)

As Judai summons Featherman–to Shou and Chronos’s surprise–and has him lunge at Manjoume for the finisher, I reinserted my fix to keep the black faraway box that is Featherman on his Disk both as those two slide in on split-screens and as they slide back out. [Ep. 4 Flashback End]

(Episode 8 Flashback) I reinserted my fix to remove Featherman from Judai’s Disk as his LP drop from Cyber Dragon destroying it.

Reinserted my fix to a repeat of #14 as Judai’s excited about Ryou’s Time Capsule.

As Judai draws for his turn, I added a Fusion card over the dark-orange rectangle briefly in his hand as he draws it.

After Judai’s first hit on him, I fixed the error as Ryou Special-Summons another Cyber Dragon as a Monster in face-down Defense Mode on his second Monster Zone (detailed in that Sunday post).

Reinserted my fix adding Cyber Twin Dragon to Ryou’s Disk over a yellow rectangle.

As the screen zooms in on Judai after Ryou declares Cyber Twin’s attack, I added Thunder Giant to Judai’s third Monster Zone, then reinserted my previous fix adding it as it zooms back out while Judai uses A Hero Appears.

Reinserted my fix adding a few quick lip flaps to Judai as he says, “Partner,” out loud.

As Judai thinks about how Evolutionary Wings would evolve his Winged Kuriboh and we then see Bubbleman on his field, I added a missing Bubbleman card to his Disk.

Right after #21, I revised my previous fix to replace the Defense-Mode Mudballman on his Disk with an Attack-Mode Bubbleman, after I accidentally put it in Defense Mode before.

As Ryou grabs Power Bond from his hand before activating it, I reinserted my fix adding Ryou’s two missing Cyber Dragons to his Disk and then one over the blank Normal Monster card in his left hand.

As Ryou slips Power Bond into his Disk, I reinserted my fix adding those two missing Cyber Dragons onto his Disk. [Ep. 8 Flashback End]

For the Ep. 67 preview, I added my translation of the notice left on the Red dorm by Napoleon which I’ll be using in the episode proper.

#GX #yugioh #yugioh gx #ygo #ygo gx #Judai Yuki #Ryou Marufuji #Chronos de Medici #Jun Manjoume #Daichi Misawa #my subs #i do have to wonder if the staff had a dartboard of ideas of who would spur the flashbacks in 66 #and they somehow landed on bringing back SAL for a bit lol #he's nice enough to snap Judai out of his hunger visions #also s/o to that one dub voice for... somehow surviving that dartboard decision

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border-spam · 4 years

Text

Wolf in wolf’s clothing

Gift fic for the lovely @artisthicc-nikyri of her oc’s Ari and Jameson, and her Troy!

Make sure to check out her art blog for more of her amazing shit

Jameson had been right.

This was so much easier than working in the kitchens...

Ari snorted to herself smugly as she popped another piece of hard candy into her mouth, lazily eying the slow crawl of the progress bar on her monitor as the file continued to render.

This was a piece of cake, this was so chilled out in comparison.

She’d thought at first it would have been terrifying, that working in such close proximity with the God King would have been even worse than dealing with the head cooks, but man, she’d had nothing to worry about in retrospect. A whole month now since she’d joined the editing team, and she’d not seen Troy once.

The other editors in his media team had filled her in, and it seemed for all J insisted God King Calypso was a “Pretty normal person under all the bullshit”, he was an enigma to work for. Fair, but weird. Quiet, but frightening. If you handed in your projects on time and didn’t get in his way? The job was piss as long as you had the skills he wanted. Safe lodgings within the main COV compound, food and medical care, and a position in the God King’s own media team was something followers would tear each other’s faces off for, and did according to the footage she was currently working on.

If you didn’t pull your weight though?

Well.

They’d not gone into details, but made clear through hushed warnings that she really should make sure she didn’t fuck this up.

Bobbing her head in time to the music thrumming through her earphones, she slid further into the huge custom chair, pulling her knees up to her chest with a shiver in the cool dark of the editing room. It was always cold in here she’d found, aircon set to suck the heat out of the machines and consoles that lined the rows of editing desks in the dim glow of the sleep mode displays, while Calypso’s throne-like personal station flickered data across the wall of monitors it faced that she’d yet to actually see him use. Helios had been so pompous and insufferably showy when it came to displays of wealth, but even living on the station for years with J before they ended up on Pandora, she’d never had access to tech or setups like this before. “The God Twins provide” really did have credence when you worked directly under them. Everything from the top end rigs to the leather high-backed editing chairs stamped with Troy’s emblem felt like it cost more than she’d ever earn, a sad reality she considered while running her thumb along the bottom row of keys on her backlit keyboard.

Ariana Serino shone at her from the custom board’s base, pulsing red light against matte black just like everything else in the room. For someone who was literally never here, Troy clearly had a tight grip on the department’s aesthetic.

She had hated the kitchens, she really had.

The head cooks were egotistical shitheads with superiority complexes who like so many of the Twins’s followers, saw any step up in authority as somehow being closer to their Gods. They knew she was like a sister to Jameson, and they knew how close Jameson was to Father Troy. It had painted a target on her she’d rather have avoided, and they had never, once, gotten off her damn back.

ANYTHING they could berate her over had been used against her, anything to make them feel like they were better than her. Better than someone so close to the King’s Pastor.

J knew, he’d seen how tired she had been, how stressed. It had been him that had gotten her this sweet gig, and she’d made sure to work her ass off for the last month straight. No one seemed to have actually noticed, but then again, no one was screaming abuse at her either, so she must be doing a good enough job. Troy didn’t come across as the sort of boss to hold back in letting her know if she wasn’t.

Checking in on her next task with a quick click on the flashing mail icon on her screen, she sighed and rolled her stiff shoulders with a stretch, tapping the keybinds to begin the asset download as she scanned the mail contents. _ _

“Let’s Flay 22.12.NL, due scheduling & upload 48 hours fn.

Focus on clip 4, 7, & 11, Ty closeups, keyframes 4-gore use @ clip 1-2. Get that shit visceral.

GKT” _ _

She’d certainly not had any negative feedback from the God King at least, then again, she’d not had any words from him bar these shorthand communications, and they seemed identical to the ones he sent to the full editing group. She’d wondered more than once how much he actually knew about her based on what Jameson had told him in order to get her this position, or, if he actually even knew about her at all.

J loved to gloat to her about all the effort he’d had to labor over to get her in, all the late night convincing and grandiose bullshitting he’d done in her favor to the God King’s ear, wheedling her into the editing team like his own personal project, but honestly? She was pretty sure Troy didn’t even know her name, let alone much else. She was a symbol on his mailing list, a faceless employee to pump out fuel for the COV media machine at his behest, and being so unimportant had some sweet benefits.

Ones like the 3am flashing on the wall clock facing her across the room, neon numbers burning red through the inky darkness.

Mannn, she thought with a smirk as she checked the open messenger app on screen. She’d had such a good lay in today…

Not being important meant no one actually cared when she showed up for her shift. She’d realised last week after oversleeping and arriving hours late in a panic, then not having anyone so much as bat an eye. Shifts here didn’t seem to actually matter. They had assigned ones, but people just seemed to really come and go as they pleased. Long as they clocked in the required amount of hours and sent on their completed tasks, there apparently wasn’t any consequences, and that suited her perfectly.

She could sleep as late in the day as she wanted, drag her ass out of bed and to her desk, and work away till the early AM hours. A nice empty editing studio with no distractions, no colleagues to deal with, and no J pinging her 40 times an hour with silly chatter, she confirmed as she checked the empty notifications in the chat app. He must be asleep, it was literally the only time the guy shut up, not that she’d change that for the world. Jameson filled the sad silences of Ari’s life with infectious positivity. She owed him so much…

The sudden flash of fluorescent light as the room’s door swung open startled her out of her thoughts, and immediately into habits formed a decade ago on Eden-6. She froze, silent, heart slowing as her eyes narrowed and then shifted smoothly towards the danger on the other side of the room as she heard the door slam shut.

Padded, heavy footsteps marked someone’s approach along the side of the low walled editing desk rows, and she sunk lower into the darkness of her cubicle, flattening her silhouette like dad had taught her years ago as she slid the headphones down around her neck. Stay low. Stay quiet. Listen closely. Don’t move. It won’t see you. You won’t be eaten.

She felt her heart skip a beat as the shadow appeared before the predator, the dim lights of the editing room just enough to cast it on the floor as they approached, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she for a moment recognised the narrow height of the shape prowling towards her row. Jameson. Thank God, for a second she’d thought…

No, not Jameson. It was still coming, and the silhouette was only getting larger. Jameson wasn’t this tall. Jameson wasn’t this graceful. She’d convinced herself for a moment that she was safe, but she wasn’t.

Ariana felt her bones turn to ice as the harsh light of the data flickering across the throne’s monitors revealed the towering outline of God King Troy.

He shifted slowly, back turning towards her as he faced his desk, unaware of the woman watching him from under the gaps of her monitors.

He looked.. tired? Smaller, softer. Not exactly as terrifying as she had prepared herself for, not as imposing in a loose sweater and low set glasses as he was in raised collars and draped fur. He was still very clearly Father Troy, but like he’d shucked off a heavy costume after a long day. Neater, less makeup, hair looser and not as spiked. No chains or accessories hanging from his belt, just his slacks and a rolled up sweater sleeve his massive prosthetic was connecting to its socket through.

She trembled nervously as he stiffly lowered his weight into the hulking chair in front of her, settling the cup of coffee he’d been carrying down next to his flesh arm as he deftly hit keys with the cybernetic fingers of his right and began to pull up files across the monitors flashing to life in front of him.

He had no idea she was here Ari realised, beginning to calm as the scent of his coffee filed the room alongside the quick tapping of his mismatched fingers across keys. What was she meant to do…?

He clearly thought he was alone here. She’d never heard of the God King looking like this, the twins were always pristine in their curated appearances when around others. Grunge psycho-chic or draped in gold and jewels, but never average. The idea of Troy looking relatively normal like this? It felt like she shouldn’t be seeing it at all. It felt private. She pressed her palms harder against the flat of her desk and eyed the distance between the curve of his shoulders and the entry doorway she was considering bolting through.

“Shit” she hissed through gritted teeth. He’d catch her, he’d either see her from the corner of his eye or hear the automated door as it opened for her, she was running out of options. If he caught her trying to sneak out, he’d probably be even angrier, right? He’d prefer if she just broke the silence and apologised for interrupting him, she decided as she swallowed the nervous lump insisting on tightening her throat. J said he liked it when people were honest. He liked it when people didn’t bullshit him, and J knew Troy. She should just.. greet him. Dad used to say it was better to face a Tyrant head first than die with its teeth in your back when you tried to run, right?

She slowly straightened, lifting her chest off the desk and leaning silently back into her seat as she carefully tucked her hair behind her ears and flattened out her tank. Wide eyes not leaving the back of his head as he hunched over his station while she began to pump herself up.

You got this Ariana. You’ve faced bigger fangs than this asshole has, he’s just a man. He can be reasonable, just say something.

She breathed out slowly, steadying her lungs before breaking the silence.

“Forgive me your majesty, I didn’t know y-”

She startled out of her sentence as he whipped round to face her, unprepared for the violent speed of his reaction as he rose out his seat.

“WHY ARE YOU HERE??” Troy bellowed over her quiet greeting, and her brain stalled in trying to respond as he stormed towards her desk.

“I.. I.. I’m just.. working some overtime, Father Troy, catching up on som - Ah!”

She flinched as he yanked the mouse out of her hand, ice cold metal digits tearing it out of her fingers and onto the desk in front of him, expertly pulling up her activity monitor script over the chat window where Jameson’s afk profile pic still flashed.

“Overtime? Fucking bullshit.” he growled, flashing gold capped teeth as he sneered inches from her face. “LOOK.”

She cleared her throat quietly, cowering under his looming torso as she snapped her eyes to the onscreen log he was referring to.

“You clocked in 3 hours ago.. Bunny..” -Her chat nick? He’d seen oh god this was so embarrassing oh g- “Overtime means working after your shift, not starting it in the middle of the fucking night. Did you just lie to me?!”

Wow. She was dead. This was it. It was the end. Why’d she ever listened to J, he was an idiot. She should have just run. She was going to be ripped apart by this lanky asshole and it was all J’s fault for insisting he was nice underneath. She was going to haunt that green bitch for the rest of his life. Nothing left to lose now, she accepted with finality. Just be honest. He was either going to break her neck or not.

“I’m.. sorry.” She whispered, then continued as she realised with rising surprise that he was waiting to hear the rest.

“I was very late today and I just wanted.. to make sure I finished these edits for you for tomorrow. I don’t have the right tech in my quarters, it felt like the right thing to do was just stay here and get it done..”

Ari waited as the silence continued, swallowing tightly as she raised her eyes slowly, hoping for a positive reaction. He was quiet, still hovering above her and leaning heavy on the massive prosthetic still resting on her desk as he massaged the bridge of his nose with his human fingers, but his face had relaxed, his mouth no longer a tight grimace. He just looked.. sad, and tired, and like he was done with this.

“You’re Ariana, right?” he muttered through an exhale as he pressed his fingers tighter into the corners of his closed eyes under the glasses.

“Yes Tr-SIR! Sir. Ariana Ser-”

“I don’t care.”

She jumped slightly as the metal limb to her right lifted off the desk as he stood.

“I don’t care when you get the work done. It’s fine.” he sighed, voice rough and quiet.

“I don’t shift people late because I don’t want people here late, but you can stay till you get your shit done.”

His hand dropped to his side as he looked down at her, meeting her worried gaze over the frames of his glasses.

“..but don’t ever lie to me again. You’re here because Jameson recommended you, and as much as a pain in the ass as he can be, I trust Jameson. This is your one strike.”

She slowly felt the tension relax out of her joints as he turned and began to walk back towards his station, flopping down into the massive chair with a sigh as he raised his eyes to hers again.

“If he hadn’t, and you were anyone else and lied to me like that? …You’d be dead where you sat.”

Ari twisted her fingers between her hands nervously as he swiveled towards his monitors and began to type once more. How the hell had she survived that. How had that worked out when she’d been so close to getting the axe, figuratively and literally. She checked the chat app once more while beginning to settle back into a more comfortable position. Jameson was still offline, he was probably sleeping soundly through the most stress she’d had in years, typical.

Opening the editing software again, she began to work on the next clip in her log, painfully aware of typing as quietly as possible so as not to interrupt her new colleague.

As the minutes ticked by, she found herself relaxing slowly. The atmosphere stayed desperately tense, and the God King’s heavy silence punctuated each harsh snap of a key or frustrated sigh he made all the more as they continued to work together. Troy was noticeably on edge, fidgeting in the corner of her vision every now and then, tugging at the rolled shoulder of his sweater or trying to sweep his hair forward as if his appearance was upsetting him, making him feel awkward in some way.

He was angry with himself, more than anything. This was Jameson’s friend. This was his only friend’s closest companion, the person he described as a sister, and this was going to be her first experience of him?

He hadn’t meant to snap earlier. She’d just caught him so unprepared. No one was meant to be here tonight, he should have been able to get these final shots compiled and queued for upload in peace. Instead, he was sitting in the same room as someone he’d probably just terrified, trying to work while hyper aware he was out of character, and he hated being out of character around others. He didn’t even have his fucking hair done, he looked like a tool. This was not the kind of cringe he enjoyed, and he had no experience in how to deal with this situation.

Should he say something? He wasn’t sure, she probably didn’t want to talk to him anyway he worried, glancing over his shoulder at the back of her monitors, just able to make out her hands working away under them. Jameson would tell him to say something, but he didn’t know what that something should even be. What if he just made this worse. This wheedling grip of anxiety in his gut was one of Troy’s least favorite feelings. It was the kind of stupid, unmanageable worry that left your heart beating just a little too fast, your palm sweaty, it was horrible. He liked to be in control, always. Of everything, but especially himself. Feeling like a nervous child in his own damn editing office, where he had come to clear his mind tonight so he could possibly get some sleep later? It was bullshit, and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tapped his fingers against the empty coffee cup to his left, trying to focus on what he should say rather than how awkward the atmosphere was. “You.. uh..”

He winced to himself at how his voice caught in his throat. Great start, God King. Fuck. Get your act on!

“-Ahem- You know Jameson a long time, right?” He prompted, noting the sounds of her typing had stopped in response, and the slight squeak of leather behind him meant she had shifted in her seat.

“Yes sir...” Ari responded meekly, barely audible over the wall of monitors between them.

“Troy. Troy is ok right now. It’s not like there’s anyone else around, huh?” He called back, feeling his confident act begin to fall back into place as his practiced nonchalant speaking tone shifted over the tightness in his voice from a moment ago.

He felt the pull of a smirk at the corners of his mouth as he heard a soft breath of a laugh from Ariana, and the tension beginning to disperse from the room.

“Yes, si-Troy! Sorry. Troy.” She called back, louder this time, and he leaned back a little more comfortably into his seat. “Yeah we’ve known each other a long time!” She continued, voice tilting upwards in obvious excitement.

“We met on Helios, when we were kids.” Ari offered, noting the slight turn of the Holy Twin’s head towards her as he listened.

“Well I was a kid, he was a bit older, but we were in the same class in what passed for a school on that place. He didn’t have many friends his age I guess, and I had no friends at all, so he kind of just attached to me! You know how some people are just like that?” A quiet snort of agreement from the desk in front of her making clear that yes, Troy knew exactly what ‘kind of people’ Jameson was exactly like.

“We just adopted each other then.” She followed. “We’ve kind of always been together since. He talked too much, he said, and that I talked too little! He’s been trying to make me get better at that.. actually.. uhh..” she trailed off, feeling a rush of returned awkwardness in the fact she was currently monologuing at a deity who could rip in her two if she irritated him.

He shifted further in his seat, turning far enough for her to catch the reflection of his monitors in his eye as he glanced back at her. “No, go on.” he encouraged reassuringly. “Kind of interesting to hear someone else’s opinion of the caustic tool for once.”

She caught the wolfish smirk before he turned back towards his screens, and felt a genuine smile of her own blossom in the relief that she wasn’t talking too much, he actually seemed to be enjoying this in some way. “Sure. Umm... Oh! We left Helios before everything went crazy up there, not long after all that shit happened with Jack. I think the COV was just starting up around then..” she mused for a moment, then let out a short laugh. “He’s my brother now I guess, and like you said before, he’s a pain in the ass, but I wouldn’t trade him for anything!” Ari chuckled, before excitedly continuing. “Oh man! Sorry, I-I mean, I don’t need to explain that, do I! I guess you of all people know all about that kind of feeling for someone like a sibling, right?”

Her smile faded as the seconds ticked by to no response, just the quick tapping of his fingers across the keys as he continued to work. That cold tension began to creep back into the air, and for a moment, she wondered if she really should have shut up earlier. “Where were you before Helios?” he prompted, voice controlled and tone unsettlingly blasé as he deftly opened up 3 more windows and dragged clips into them, his head subtly moving with his eyes as they shifted from file to file. “You clearly weren’t born there.”

The misdirection didn’t escape her, but she knew he was purposefully attempting to put her at ease by continuing the conversation, and it wasn’t a gesture she’d reject. “No, no I was born on Eden-6. I was there my whole childhood with my family before we all moved to-”

His raucous barking laugh interrupted her mid sentence, and she blanched, unsure of what she had said that was funny.

“Eden-6! Mannnnn!” he balked, hiccuping laughter rolling into a growling chuckle. “Dude, sucks for you, that place is a fuckin’ swampass shithole.”

He broke into laughter again, tilting his head back and running his hand back through the thick hair that she realised had been falling in front of his face this whole time, and Ariana saw red.

What the hell was funny about Eden-6? They were living on fucking Pandora by choice, and he calls Eden-6 a shithole? Seriously? She squeezed her fists shut and barely registered the bite of her long nails as they dug into her palms, completely aware she was losing the battle to keep quiet and not say something she’d regret.

“Wow. Funny. So what kind of up-its-own-ass wealthy bullshit homeworld did you come from?” Ari snapped back, before almost instantly reeling from how stupid an idea that outburst was.

She recoiled back into her chair as fear crept up her spine again, and felt her stomach drop even further as he slowly stood out of his seat, turning towards her.

His icy eyes met hers as he crossed the distance between their desks, half hooded and lazy above the rims of his glasses, maintaining their contact as he stopped in front of her monitors and calmly reached his prosthetic over before gently plucking the empty soda can off the desk beside her. She felt a wave of confusion as he turned with one last glare in her direction, before he began to walk towards the wall near the entrance door. She finally noticed he was carrying his coffee cup in the other hand.

Oh.

He wasn’t going to kill her. He was just.. getting more drinks. For both of them it seemed, considering she could hear the hiss of the team’s coffee machine in the dark, and the quiet open and close of their small stocked fridge. Ari stared down at her hands in her lap, cringing with each step as she heard him approach, desperately embarrassed by her overreaction.

She winced as she heard the clunk of the soft drink can he’d placed on the desk inches in front of her, and muttered a breathy “Sorry.”, still avoiding looking at him directly. The tap of his prosthetic’s finger on the rim of the can was a clear signal he wanted her to however, and she reluctantly raised her eyes to meet his, painfully aware of her flushed cheeks.

“Don’t worry about it.” he chuckled, still looming over the rise of her monitors like a lanky predator eying up its next meal. “J said you were good at speaking your mind. I kinda appreciate that with the people I have here. Means the feedback I get is uhh” he raised his eyebrows as he thoughtfully looked to the side “.. actually useful at times.”

“Besides, you’re wrong anyway, little miss thinks-she-knows-shit.” he scoffed, smiling into his coffee as he sipped from the refilled cup, then letting his gaze shift afterwards from the hot drink back to the extremely confused Ariana. “I’m from a shithole too.”

It took her a second for what he’d said to really register, and then Ari laughed. Really laughed, deep from her guts in snorting, gasping bursts. A moment later, he joined her, and for the first time that night it was truly genuine from him, even if it was quiet and tired, and still a little awkward.

The pause after was comfortable, and he stalked back to his chair, slumping into it as he nursed his drink. She eyed the can he’d brought her, the exact same energy drink as what had been empty on her desk, and the realisation he had been paying such attention felt oddly flattering to Ariana, like warmth deep in her belly. She reached out and touched the can, only the sounds of Troy sipping his drink and the fans and quiet clicks of the machine components around them breaking the silence. It wasn’t something she was used to. She was used to not mattering enough to notice things about, and wasn’t sure how to really handle this feeling. It felt welcoming, but frightening. Like being on the precipice of something. Like change.

“By the way” he smoothly interrupted her thoughts as he called over to her “I’m here most nights, around this time. If, you know, you do prefer working late, just keep in mind I’ll be around too. Long as it doesn’t affect your work, I’m ok to share the editing room with you like this.”

Ari was unsure why exactly, but that did something to her. It was innocent, it was an olive branch of friendship, she knew, but the reaction was visceral. Her instincts kicked in once more and a thrill of cold ran up her spine, prompting her to stand quickly and finally attempt to take her leave, approaching his desk nervously to bid her farewell.

“Troy, um, God King, thank you! For.. the chat, it was .. fun?” she stammered while eying the exit door as he lazily watched from over his raised cup.

“I’ve finished the tasks you queued for me so I’m going to, um, go to sleep hahhh.” she laughed unconvincingly, wringing her hands together as she awkwardly sidestepped towards the door, slowly turning away from him as she edged closer to her escape.

“Mmhm.. sure. Night.” he mused, cocking an eyebrow as he considered her with deep set interest, before continuing just as she reached towards the door controls.

"Oh, and Bunny?“ Troy drawled, watching as she stopped in her tracks and slowly turned to face the editing chair he was draped over.

"Keep all of this - " He gestured lazily between them, and raised a finger to tap the frame of his glasses as he locked eyes with her over the lenses. "- to yourself."

"Being cute doesn't stop wolves from eating little rabbits alive... Understand?“

There was a pregnant silence as Ari parsed the threat, the roaring of her own pulse overpowering the background hum of the cooling fans thrumming in the darkness of the almost entirely empty editing room she was so close to escaping from.

"Yes... sir” she swallowed shakily “ I understand."

She winced at the streak of blue light that pierced the darkness when Troy's metallic canines caught the monitor's glow as his mouth split into a vicious grin.

"Good girl. Sleep tight then. Night night." the God King sneered through those sharp, sharp teeth...

---

But Ariana didn’t sleep tight, and she spent all night trying to work out exactly why.

************

If you enjoyed this I’d love to hear comments or feedback, and you can check the rest of my twins writing:

Here

#borderlands #borderlands 3 #bl3 #troy calypso #calypso twins #ariana-serino #jameson-black #my hcs #my writing

56 notes · View notes

henry-stein-art · 5 years

Text

The Ink Demonth [by Halfusek] Day 14: Theories

SPOILER TIME!

\Also, you will get some violence (but no blood), sad and mature things/

I drew, do costume, animated a cutscene, I think it’s the good day for Writing! I never go watch, read or know theories because I’m not a fan of, I just wanted play the game, appreciate it, and try to understand myself the story, without any influence of others. Of course, it’s like I have do myself a theory, because I headcanon some details about some element in game (like the reason of the visible name of Frank Fontaine in the administration room) and write a pre-story for explain the game. Sorry for mistakes, english is not my main langage! Now, time for the (very long) reading and I hope you will like it!

One day, while Joey Drew, Wally Franks and Henry Stein share a dinner, they talk about this project to create an animation studio. Joey wanted to be between Warner Animation studios and Walt Disney studios, Henry was an artist, daydreaming and love drawing - and how beautiful was his draws - and Wally was a devoted man who help so much the both. In this era, making cartoon was a good thing, and has really a public for, because people needed sweet and happy thing to watch for forgot the society problems. Joey Drew and Henry Stein was two brother of a modest family, living in a rural area. Henry work with their father, and Joey choose general study. He couldn’t work like his brother because he was born with a bad leg, make him limp and can’t support heavy charge. The both mutually supportive but Henry keep a certain distance, seems being more independant and less talkative than his bro. Wally was their neighbour and becoming a friend. He come from rich family and studying at the city highschool. Before he meets Joey and Henry, he wanted become a pilot, but Mr. Drew has completely changed his view of the future, and now he want that people smile and laugh with some silly cartoons. And today, Joey Drew studios is a place for Bendy cartoon, a character born under the pen of Henry, on his desk. He had created a first version, but finally leave him because Joey told him that this Bendy look likes Felix the cat and he doesn’t want deal with Mr. Messmer for “copy” his work. Also, Henry rework on it, and finally found the final design. Shaped head round with two sort of horns on the top, black circle pie eyes, and a gentle smile of eight teeth. Dressed with a big bowtie and white gloves, for see the hands even if they are on his black body. In the corner of the hall, where the desk of Henry was, the cartoonist work on story-board and do some keyframes. Because the studio has no windows, there is few lights for keep his eyes safe.

Few days later, Wally bring to Joey and Henry a new guy. The name is Norman Polk, he told to Mr. Drew that he can give him some old projectors who belonged to his sister. The man was a little shy, no really talkative, and leave them quickly. Henry turn his head for see the eyes of Joey. A genious spark was in. With a little irony, he says:

“I know what you think, but you can’t take his life for our cheap studio.

— Don’t be so rude, Henry. It’s cheap for now, but it will becoming a big empire!

— What’s that mean, uh? Big empire? With only me for make cartoons? You want kill me!

— You’re alone for now, and it will be hard to found someone who is talented as you in drawing, but this dream will come true. Trust me.”

Henry sight and smile. Weak body but strong will. And a little stubborn too.

Days and months passed and as Joey told, it was only the begining. Now, there is a woman for story-boarding and the sound. At first, Henry didn’t notice her, doing his work hard and stay at his desk. He don’t see the time, when the sun leave his place for the moon, and just leave his keyframes for basics vital thing, like eating or drinking. And there is this guy who bring them the projectors, Norman is a calm man, and do the work without say any words. The studio become a little more bigger, with some new room. Henry choose to stay in this corner of the entrance hall. As he said: “A cartoonist take some habit for a long time. And when he has it, he never change!”

Because this woman was a story-boarder, she leave the plan to Henry, but she never see him directly. Joey talk about him, and sometime she can hear the two man talk. But when she cross the hall, he’s never at his desk. The lady think this strange, and feel like he avoids her. She wants know why, so, in this morning, she come to the studio in a really early hour and wait at Henry’s desk.

“Hello? Miss? It’s my desk here.

The lady turn his head, surprised by Henry soft voice. When she see his face, his heart miss a beat.

— Uhm... Oh, uh... Sorry mister “the strange guy who is hiding of me”. Mr. Drew was not lying. You draw beautifully, she respond, trying to stay professional. — Thank you. But now, I need to sit here and continue my work. — You are so rude with a sweet lady! So, you win! I will not move!

Henry get distraught. That’s right, it was cold response. Fault to the fact that he works so much that he doesn’t take the time for friendship or even talk with others. He pick up a keyframes lying down on the floor and arrange his messy desk. The woman still not move, as she tolds. Embarrassed, Henry scratches his neck and respond:

— Yeah. It was rude. You will forgive me if I offer you a coffee? — I drink tea with honey in and two lump of milk. Coffee is for rude man as you, mister.”

She crosses her arms on his chest and close his eyes. Henry understand this little game of her and go buy what she wants.

When he comes back with the tea, he sees Joey, talking to a tall guy, with a rude face. He hold a paper in his hands. The cartoonist see only the word “Money”. When Joey see him with the cup of tea in hands, he gives him a grin smile.

“I see you finally see Mrs. Weddersburg. So? Isn’t a beautiful lady? — Oh, please, keep your eyes right off of my personal life. she's keeping my office hostage for this tea. It’s only this. — It’s not only this, Henry. I know you. We are brothers. — Not when we work, Mr. Drew.”

Henry leave and give the tea to the woman. She thanks him and say:

“I think you should put this keyframe after this one. And clean up a little your desk. See! A real mess! How you do for not lost yourelf? — It’s an organized mess. — So, Mr. Drew is your brother?

Henry raises an eyebrow, surprised of the question.

— Yes. But... We was always not really close. I consider him as a friend more than my brother. — You are the less loved child of the both. Because is the younger one and his limping leg. That’s why you are independant, calm and rude with others.

A embarrassed silence echoing between them. Also, the lady stand up and smile.

— Sorry for that. I... — No, its okay, don’t worry. — Maybe we can talk about this in my home, this evening? — Uh... Wha... I mean, yes. Seems a good idea. — I will buy coffee for this rude man who hide a sweet heart. — My name is Henry. — Yeah, of course, mister “I have an organized mess”.

The both laugh. Before leaving, the lady says:

— My name is Linda Weddersburg. I will come after your work for go home.”

One year later, Henry and Linda share their life together. Henry and Joey arguing more last time. The cartoonist feel tired of work, but Joey promise him that will becoming better in next week.

And the next week, while Henry working on a new cartoon, with a new character named Boris, a friendly wolf who love eating, he feel a little dizzy. So, he leaves his desk a little for walking around the studio. He falls on something, in the corridor where the desk of Linda is. A big pipe cross the floor. A sign advertise “watch your step” but it’s too late. Linda come out of his desk and help Henry to stand up, ask him if he’s okay. When the both follow the pipe, they found a new room, with Joey and this same tall man that the last time. Joey notice Henry and Linda and show the imposing machine in the middle of the room.

“ I present you the Ink Machine! With this thing, we can create more easier the cartoons! — Thanks for that. It was nice if I didn’t fall on this pipe in the middle of the corridor. — Are you ok? — It’s late for the question but yeah, thanks for worry about my bones. So this thing can do my work? A machine? — It’s more complicated. Just keep drawing. I will come later for show you how it’s work.”

The evening, the machine is started. Henry’s heart miss a beat and fall of his chair when he hears the machine start. He mutters to himself, a little frustrated because his ink fall on the floor, and ruined his keyframes. When he recovers and try to clean his work, the ink on his hands suddlendly moving by itself. Surprised, Henry scream, and go back from his desk. The ink cover his skin on his hands and soon his arms. When he look for someone can help him, his eyes cross something more horryfing. A creature, melted in the ink, stand beside the desk. Henry freezes, feel scary. His eyes are rolling back and he hears his own body fall on the floor. When Henry wake up, he sees the walls of his bedroom. He’s lying down on his bed. Linda is sit beside him. She look him with big eyes.

“Oh! You come back in the world of the living! How you feel? — My head hurt like hell. What’s happened? — When we found you, your desk was covered of ink, and you too. You had screamed, seems like you had see a ghost. — It was not a ghost. It was... uh... An inky thing. — Yeah, your eyes was covered by ink. How have you done this? It was like you take a bath in ink pool! — Bendy. — What are you saying? — It was Bendy. It’s... It’s standing in front of me... The... the ink moving by... — Shht, it’s okay. It’s okay. Calm down. You’re safe now. It was just overworking. You need sleep. I keep an eye on you, okey?”

When Henry goes back to sleep, Linda look him, worried. It’s more than overworking. It’s seems that his mind slowly break.

A week later, Henry finally come back to his work. He’s more quiet than usual and he losts his smile. His eyes are dull. Linda talk about it with Joey but the man seems doesn’t realize the mental state of his own brother, more worried for the future of the studio. Henry hears Linda arguing with Joey, saying: “You have no future if you kill your only one cartoonist!“ And Joey response scare Henry. His response echoing in his mind: “So, if I risk to kill him, I keep him alive myself!” Keep him alive? What’s that’s mean? Henry notice that he lost a reference drawing. The one for Bendy. He search in all his papers, and look on the floor. There is nothing. When he’s recovering, he sees a black four-fingered hand on the surface of his desk. This time, the cartoonist cover his mouth and nose. Maybe this ink creature can feel him only if it hear him. Suddendly, the creature grab Henry by the neck. He tries to scream for help, but the inky thing force on his neck. With his right hand, he cover the face of Henry. The man cry, despite him. He wants call for help, but no sound come out of his mouth. He chokes because of the ink dripping in his mouth and cough violently. The move save him, the creature lets him fall on the floor.

Henry stay lying down on the floor, he throws up some ink. He feels like his heart will explode, and try to calm down. But he fails. If it’s a hallucination causing by overworking, that’s mean he need to stop the job. He hears Linda run at him and cries: “Oh my god! Henry!” Linda shake him but he can’t move. He feels something wet fall on his face. Linda take his hand. “Henry! Please! Stay with me!” Henry found a little strenght for move his finger, but it’s the only thing that he can does.

In an far echo, Henry hear Joey’s voice, arguing with someone else.

“It was an accident! I don’t even know what’s happened!”

And there is Wally’s voice.

“The pipe burst often...”

After a moment, Henry try to open his eyes. He hears Joey again.

“It was really an accident, Wally. I found the room open, this grinning thing wandering around. I can’t understand why it’s attacked Henry!”

Linda’s voice intterupt Joey and Wally.

“Because this thing wanted his soul. If it wanted kill him, Henry would be dead.”

And an unknow voice.

“About death, what will you tell to others? You will fake his death and replace it?”

28 years later, in a little city, Henry come out for take the letters from the mailbox. He lives with Linda and has a beautiful child. He leaves finally Joey Drew with his studio, and found another job, far away from animation. His wife has a new job too, and the child go to the school. She sees sometime his uncle Joey, when he’s home or come here. Back to the living room, Henry sit on the sofa and take his cup of tea, prepared by his wife, and read the newspaper.

“See, honney? Local artist pushed himself too hard, found dead at desk. Heh! It’s my face! — Joey could has doing better. It’s not your best profile. — And black clothes doesn’t look good on me. It’s make me rude. — Talking about the old things, give me your arm. It’s time to take your medicine. — Great. — Don’t give me that face, sweetheart. It’s for your good sake. It keeps you human.

Henry sight. He’ cleenching his teeth when the needle go throught his skin. When it’s done, Henry rub his arm and says:

— You mean it’s keep me alive. With this body stuck between an ink thing and a human. — It’s okey, sweetheart. You have the same face that before. Your body is stable with this thing, even if it’s not pleasant. — Thanks Joey, you have ruined my young life. That’s why I don’t want let our child alone with him. Joey is a specialist for take others’s life for his “empire”. — It’s your turn to go wake her up, by the way.”

Henry kisses his wife softly and go in the child’s bedroom. Since the “accident” where Henry drown in ink, he’s not a normal human anymore. So, with the help of some others worker of the studio, they found a medicine for keep him human, the more as possible. Of course, because his ink part, he can does strange thing with his body, like the physics of the cartoons that he’s drew before. Linda comfort him by saying some joke, like is usefull for take too higher or far stuff that’s she needs for cooking. Or for keep an eye on their child when she sleeping, without disturb her. Also, he dreams almost all night the same thing, about him alone in the studio, wandering for get out and encounter ink monsters. Alison Pendle send them a letter for say that its normal, she get the same dreams where she meet Henry and try to explain that all of this never exist, just tought. Henry is right, his life was ruined and now, even if he lives, it’s changed. He can’t come back to the old town, because the newspaper announce his death. Linda sigh and see a letter from Joey Drew. She take the envelope and says: “You even cheat the death itself, Joey.”

#The Ink Demonth #Bendy and the Ink Machine #fiction #fanon #theory #pre-story #Long Reads #joey drew studios #joey drew #Henry #linda #wally franks #norman polk #the projectionist #thomas connor #gent #ink machine

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tranxendance · 5 years

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I think Mob Psycho 100 is my favorite anime ever.

Which is a weird thing to title a post, I’ll give you that. Even my current favorites, Cowboy Bebop and Fullmetal Alchemist have parts of them I don’t like and I consider them 9 or 9.5′s out of 10.

I ‘think’ it’s my favorite because it’s (As time of this writing) still ongoing but it’s safe to say the last episode of season 2 isn’t going to be suddenly terrible. That, and I haven’t had months and years to stew on it before I claim it’s actually my favorite.

I tend to like things that subvert the norm, especially in the Anime business where it’s sort of expected to follow a formula and not deviate from it too much. If it worked for Akira Toriyama, it should work for us, right? The greats make a story, then everyone uses that as a skeleton to build their own very-similar story on top of it. It’s why trends and tropes are so much more noticeable in anime. Defeat-into-friendship, the tournament arc, the beach episode, power creep escalation. Sometimes, an anime will even outright take a visual theme and reuse it to trick your brain. Try to watch the Dragon Ball OP and then Yu Yu Hakusho and see how similar they are. Sometimes it’s a shot for shot copy with the YYS characters.

(They even always have the protags run from right to left the same way geez)

So, Shonen is a massively incestuous genre and it has been for 30 years or more. That’s not to say that it’s necessarily a bad thing because some shows want to ‘do it better’.

Now, ONE is a writer who sort of specializes in parody or at least subverting your expectations. You already know just by the name of the series that Saitama is going to show up and win the fight in one punch, the surprise is how hard the other characters fought before he got there, and then how instead of everyone worshipping him as a hero they harass him. So: Let’s take the shonen hero archetype. He’s physically competent, he never gives up, he has friends but never has to rely on anyone but himself, he soon surpasses his teachers if he has any, never gives up, and is righteous in his beliefs. It’s likely he has an array of ‘cool’ moves with names he can shout out, you can make action figures out of him, he’s instantly recognizable by his hair or clothing. He’s good because he’s strong and he’s strong because he’s good. I say ‘he’ because I’ve literally never seen a Shonen that didn’t have a male protagonist.

(Even my beloved Kenshiro is just...this, but again he’s sort of the archetype everyone else built on afterward)

Now along comes Mob. He’s generic looking with his dopey bowl-cut hairdo and plain black school uniform. He’s by far the most powerful psychic individually you’ll meet for the majority of the show, but he’s also a pacifist, he hates fighting and refuses to hurt other people with his powers no matter how bad and wrong they seem to be. He doesn’t really have cool lines or marketable super-moves. But most importantly of all, he is not self-reliant and tough and determined. In fact, he’s an emotional, sensitive kid that has trouble expressing himself and taking social cues from others, which makes him awkward and shy!

Ironically, of course, this sensitivity and empathy is what makes his psychic power so great, since powers come from strong emotions and he’s basically always trying not to cry. But instead of just making him able to shoot laser beams that are more powerful, his growth is that he learns how to relate with other people and make friends. When ‘defeating’ human opponents, he is deflecting their beams and telekinesis while trying to talk to them, and understand them. He’s a combat therapist. All he wants to do is either make them understand why they’re being selfish, or hurt, or afraid, and help them. This, of course, means nobody really dies and they have a REALLY good chance of turning their villainous lives around or at least becoming one of Mob’s friends.

Mob’s sensitivity and empathy but trying to keep his emotions in check is depicted by a ‘progress to explosion’ counter as he takes little hits of emotional damage and stress throughout a day, so more than any other character you know exactly how Mob feels about something despite his gormless, blank expression. When he reaches 100% he ‘explodes’ which is more or less he has a tantrum and cries and his power goes out of control. Not only is this actually awesome visually because there’s a lot of crazy effects and devastation, but your heart kind of goes out to the kid. This really only happens when something really devastating has happened and the uncontrolled power smashes the enemy of the week.

Mob’s not popular or competent at a lot of things, and would rather become ‘less weird’ than focus on honing psychic ability, which leads him to joining the Body Improvement Club, and working at Spirits & Such with Reigen. Even though he could easily coast through life with his gifts of psychic ability, he’d rather work on the things that he’s not the best at already to become a more well-rounded person. Though he’s easily so much more powerful than the body improvement club or Reigen he still looks up to them. He asks his friends for help and they support him as peers. He’s not a super-mature kid that can just do anything, he still relies on responsible adults when things seem to be beyond him, even going so far as to give his powers to Reigen at one point, because he can’t handle the responsibility on his own.

The way it’s positioned as a goofy comedy about an awkward kid allows for some unexpected emotional blows, and the artstyle (Which unlike One Punch Man didn’t get redrawn by a super-competent manga artist) primes our expectations for silliness, so you don’t immediately think about the bizzare nature of the fight scenes, and they can throw in a Street Fighter gag and you’ll hardly bat an eye.

(Doesn’t look out of place)

In modern Anime, the focus seems to be keeping characters on-model so that any individual frame that you screenshot will look pretty. But making characters highly detailed and on-model also means they can’t move around as much, or it’d be a lot of redrawing keyframes. That means there’s a lot of nice-looking characters that stand around perfectly still doing lip-flap animation for dialogue.

The low line-weight of characters in MP100 means that there can be tons of motion and it won’t be that much more difficult to draw. Reigen moves and wiggles around and strikes crazy poses while talking because of this, making even very standard dialogue fun to watch. Studio Bones also goes the extra mile and throws in different styles of animation entirely, including Ink-on-glass (A technique which, as its name implies, involves smearing slow-drying ink across glass and photographing the results. Very time-consuming and difficult), the industry-standard CG, Graphite dust on paper, chalk, and I think I even saw some cut-paper style in there too. These are often used with ghosts or psychic phenomena, to imply that they don’t follow the same rules as the other characters.

In a recent episode, the solution of the problem was Mob making friends with a person that is sort of his darker half. The person Mob could’ve become if he hadn’t actively tried to go out and socialize, to make friends, to better himself. And the conclusion of this fight is they sit down and talk and become friends...not only did I not hate that I thought it was a fucking amazing conclusion to the penultimate battle of the arc.

TLDR: Mob Psycho 100 is my new favorite anime because Mob is the opposite of a standard shonen hero, animation is amazing, artstyle allows them to play with your expectations and animate things more.

#mob psycho 100 #mp100 #mod rambling #long post #my stuff

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