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#I have so many more thoughts on this one
skylersprompts · 3 months
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DC x DP Prompt *31*
Dan… no, Bruce often thought back how his life had started. A young kid – not older than four years of age - had died in his sleep. His soul was leaving for the realms. And the Ancients had asked him if he was ready for redemption. Ready to live a new life, with all the happiness and pain it had to offer. He said yes, because nothing could be worse than rotting in the Thermos.
He had been wrong.
He had been shoved in the dying body of a little kid, his memory's of his past life simplified, so that his new brain could still grasp them without hurting him. He knew that he had been Dan once. Now he was little Bruce Wayne. He wasn’t allowed to ever take a life while he had his free will. He wasn’t allowed to ever tell anyone about his past live. He wasn’t allowed to use his powers, should he ever find the strength to reach his core again. The Ancients had made it clear that they would otherwise take everything from him. He remembered that his original, Phantom the Ancient of Balance had been against this, but he had been outvoted. If he should be able to heal his obsessions and never kill somebody, he and his family would share an afterlife together. His obsession unwrapped itself. Without being able to reach his core it was easier. His core was mending itself back together, his broken obsessions healing. From Danny's side he got the obsession to protect and belong in his fraid. From Vlad he got the obsession for control and family. And everything seemed to be perfect in the beginning. He had his Mother and Father. They were all safe. And he had as much control as a small child could have. He really was striving.
And then his parents died.
It broke him, not completely, but enough. And then he became the Batman. Being a hero, while also having something that was so vampire-esque was almost like a homage to whom he had been made of once. And even though he didn’t have a family anymore, except for Alfred, he at least could protect other people and gain some control back.
Than he got Dick, his first Robin. And everything was wonderful again, he healed again. Then he found Jason and he was brought into his little family and he loved it so much. All of this was worth it. Having his two sons and his father in all but name by his side was so much better then the Thermos.
He had been wrong again.
Bruce need for control and protect made him sometimes a bad parent, he knew this. But he never wanted to push his children away. He needed to find Jason and apologies.
And then he hold the broken body of his son.
This time the crack was bigger. Because he should have been able to protect his family. Because it was all his fault! He wanted to hunt down and kill the clown, he was holding onto a thread. He knew he would lose everyone if he let himself slip, but it was so hard.
And then Tim came into his life, holding him together, even though it shouldn’t be his job. But he healed, little by little. Until the Red Hood came. Until Jason came back and asked the impossible.
He couldn’t damn everyone and Jason to be erased. He couldn't lose his family, his son again.
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stuckinapril · 4 months
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friend wanted to see my tumblr, and when i told him i can’t show it to him bc it’s basically my personal diary he went “oh so I can’t see it but a bunch of strangers on tumblr can??” he literally does not get me. no one will get me like the people in my phone get me
#It’s just so different#even though it’s public it still feels secret and safe. i feel comfy sharing a lot more on here than I do in my actual day to day life lol#in my head I’m also just speaking to myself 90% of the time which helps#if a friend off tumblr saw my thoughts I’d feel so weird ab it#esp bc they might get the vagueposting about certain situations and tell mutual friends#no thank u. this is for me. I’m not about to start censoring my thoughts bc someone I know knows my tumblr#u guys literally saw me have LIVE BREAKDOWNS#meanwhile I’ll have the worst fucking day in history and tell no one about it. I’m already cripplingly private but way more so in real life#this is basically a low stress journaling outlet for me. it’s so important for me to maintain the separation#like this is actually my diary & has been so handy for letting out emotions / articulating thoughts / staying on track !!#& I’ve met so many kind people on here who actually get me. which is so hard to find irl bc I’m surrounded by pre-med gunners/overachievers#who are by standard not very good w emotion & can be competitive/judgmental. or at least it’s hard for me to be vulnerable in front of them#and I’m part of that crowd so I reserve my emotions only to a handful of very close friends#it’s nice to hop on here and express negative emotions!! or positive emotions!! just whatever I want and it’s low stress and people get me#I don’t have to worry about judgment or competitiveness etc etc#like everyone on here is so kind & nice & understanding. & just a breath of fresh air from the types I run w. it’s just nice to have this#so idk that’s why I think I’ll always be strict about keeping the worlds separate. it just works#p
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gravitysoda · 26 days
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refusing an impossible wish and settling for one last game of chess.
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deimosatellite · 2 months
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some misc Barn & Wally doodles from the past week or so <3 i heart them
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vynnyal · 4 months
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So let me get this straight:
Hollow knight is about the journey of a small creature possessing the corpse of a god's discarded child, and the character arc that unfolds as they realize they're more than the path they were set to take, eventually defeating the corruption instead of merely postponing inevitable destruction.
Rain world is about the journeys and experiences of many small creatures sent by a bunch of gossiping computers, and the efforts to help stop the destruction caused by a corrupted god that unfolds over hundreds of years, all to postpone his inevitable death.
Man, video games are fun!
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one of my favorite things about zedaph is that on a server full of people that find strange and oft-overlooked minecraft mechanics or rare events and then see just how far they can push them in the name of spectacle or efficiency or world-breaking, zed is over here finding these mechanics in order to do the weirdest things he can think of in as entertaining a manner as possible
like i 100% have faith in zedaph's theoretical ability to be just as efficient or spectacular or world-breaking. if he wanted to do that stuff, i trust that he absolutely could. but thats so far from being his priority. instead, hes going to spend around a week of irl time focused entirely on eventually having the good luck to spawn in something insanely rare so that he can convert it into something even rarer, the result of which being something that 99% of the server reacts with complete and utter shock that it even exists in the first place, just because its zany and funny and he wanted to. and i love that
#zedaph#hermitcraft#genuinely i adore the clucky few project im not even done watching the episode and i had to pause and make this post#i saw impulses video first and went ''that HAS to be some sort of datapack or something-''#only to immediately go ''no. no it cant be. because this is zed#and its practically a trademark of his to push the limits of the game as far as possible in the direction least expected#not for the purpose of efficiency or spectacle or intimidation or whatever like some players who push limits#but purely for the purpose of making something so funny you cant help but laugh at whats going on#and maybe being a bit impressed that he ever thought of it in the first place''#at which point i went ''holy shit. since its zed doing this. somehow he ACTUALLY got a villager on a chicken. with no cheats. thats INSANE'#i was relieved when i checked my subscriptions to see what the next video i had to watch was and saw he would be next in line#bc if i had to sit through 19 other hermits videos before i could watch his and find out what the fuck he was doing i would have been so sa#sidenote but i feel like a zed video where he interacts with this many other people all in the same video is so rare#idk i didnt watch season 9 and i know he started collabing a lot more w/ other hermits then#so maybe its not nearly as rare these days#but like the last one that *i* saw where he interacted with this many people at once was towards the end of season 8#when all the people he experimented on earlier in the season came back to experiment on him#and like i would like zeds videos with or without the collabs. but its a lot of fun to see him interact with people#so its very cool to me when he does it with a lot of people all in the same video
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pierog · 2 years
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tiny comic about eating toast with friends
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*tries to organize my thoughts*
*remembers i'm not in school and therefore beholden to neither heaven nor hell nor any man's grading system*
*joyously shredding & tossing all my carefully arranged 3x5 mental notecards into the air like so much beige confetti. raising my arms in victory, cheering raucously until i accidentally inhale bits of homemade confetti*
(*coughing up itty bits of paper like a cat evicting a hairball with a firm understanding of tenants' rights*) wait wat happens next
#i marie kondoed my thoughts and *i* feel great. but now my stream-of-consciousness has escaped containment#so many innocent bystanders at stake#every time i try to organize my thoughts i run out of plastic bins and have to make a trip to the container store where i get even more dis#racted so. you can't just hand me THIS brain and NO catalogue OR library classification system#and expect me to single-handedly sort through all this nonsense? bad form but fucking form not in my job description#aNYways. formal education sure did a FUCKING NUMBER on us huh#(a number i measure not in gpa or dollars of student debt.#but in the number of therapy sessions & medical debt it will take to recover.)#seriously folks. our education systems are...innately traumatizing for a huge number of students. and we NEED to address this.#the fact that it is culturally common for adults to have anxiety nightmares about school/exams...even decades later?#that is not cute. it is Alarming.#no one--much less entire generations--should be spending their developmental years in an environment of chronic stress & pressure & strain#and yet that is the reality for millions and millions of pre-teen and teenage and young adult students#this isn't healthy and it serves and empowers NO ONE#...except of course the many exploitative educational & financial & debt-collecting institutions thriving from the current balance of power#and of course it's a nefarious and powerful way to sabotage/erase the middle class#which billionaires and the wealth-inequality creators they finance couldn't possibly have any noteworthy interest in whatsoever#it's not like there's an elite group of people with huge financial incentives to drain/steal resources from the masses...#anyways sorry for going all Conspiracy Theory on you.#obviously the billionaires who control the vast majority of our resources and news and political campaign funding#are not tied to every single itty bitty social issue and i'm a silly billy to imply it#please tell elon musk to ignore this tweet i am so subservient and acquiescent#mr musky u r so good at inheriting slavery-built mining fortunes & buying other people's companies#& building rocket ships & fancy cars that do NOT explode/catch fire & also NOT running billion dollar companies into the ground#mr musky u r so talented genius billionaire playboy with 10 kids and ex-wives who find you creepy af babe u r basically iron man
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moeblob · 1 month
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So does he, Gallagher.
#honkai star rail#hsr blade#gallagher#i based this off of how many times i used funny soda man to help be a healer with his poppin soda pop in SU#and then blade constantly just being blade as usual#its normally him saying unnecessary to my actual healer but#i kept forgetting gallagher heals and i kept healing when i didnt even need to so TECHNICALLY yeah it was unnecessary#but the amount of times blade was the recipient......#i cant use like most of my newer units in story bc i cant ascend or i run out of leveling mats so i just#get them and toss them into simulated universe for funsies cause i can match their levels better#so thats where i tossed gallagher and he is genuinely fun to play as ? like i love his punches and kicks to start the battle#funny soda man is funny (to me) and im really behind in plot still#but last time i tried to play it on my laptop and got a kickass cutscene my laptop lagged and i couldnt even see it RIP to me#so now that its like ... me trying to play it on desktop ?#i mostly get on desktop for comms and if i do much else i feel like im slacking off even if i would take a break anyway#one day i can play more story plot stuff and actually meet the funny guys#also in case you know me for Not Having Boys in HSR i need to point out#i did pull Gallagher however same 10 pull got a 4 star girl copy for someone i never use and she is at e4 now cool#and i didnt even think of the irony as i started this i just like drawing blade and i wanted to draw gallagher#so when i already had the dialogue planned and am drawing i was like OH WAIT haha im funnier than i thought#(no i am not but we can pretend)
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raining-its-pouring · 14 days
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A little tired of people saying Moon can’t stand up for herself. Like yeah I think one of the flaws she has is she is too lenient and forgiving, but also in her situation it’s VERY HARD not to be. And it’s very situational, usually manifesting with Five Pebbles.
She stops talking to you if you annoy her enough, and only starts again if you win her back over. You have to put in the work. She isn’t “rolling over” and letting things happen to her, despite the fact that she is in absolutely no position to bargain. As stated by her, her kindness and her words are the ONLY thing she has. So her taking those away from you, the player, is absolutely her standing up for herself.
Everyone brings up how she handles Five Pebbles (esp the comms thing) and it is incredible to me just how many people lay this entirely at her feet when the game states over and over again that even despite Moon’s intentional feather-light influence over him, he still resents her for being his superior. He seeks out a mentor who is her opposite.
He wants to be something more than what he is, wants to be detached from her, and she can’t do anything about that but do the best she can to exert as little influence over him as possible.
She is stuck between a rock and a hard place here, and was betting on her kindness to have fostered enough mutual respect that she wouldn’t have to resort to forced communications. She was wrong. He was driven by fierce desperation, something that she wasn’t privy to. And she paid for it.
Yes, this is a flaw of hers. But it’s not a universal one. (the rest of the iterators look to her for help- she’s the group senior for gods sake- and people act like she can’t take a stand) I genuinely doubt Moon would’ve waited so long to used forced comms if it were happening to anyone else. If it were being committed by anyone else. And that just makes the tragedy even sweeter.
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monhiio · 9 days
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whoops gay awakening part xx
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introspectivememories · 2 months
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too many of you guys think nico is the loser and not lewis for letting the divorce go on for so long. like they're both losers about each other. emotionally constipated idiots who can't talk about their toxic homoerotic friendship that imploded on itself like 8 years ago and are now making it everyone else's problem. yeah nico's on television or in beer gardens talking about lewis all the time but like every other month some reporter is like "lewis, what's your favorite moment in your career?" and lewis no hesitation is like "oh man, karting, y'know? everything was simpler then" and then spends another six months skirting around nico's name. like this whole thing they're doing in the media isn't some kinda extended foreplay for them. they're both still pressing on the bruise to make sure it's still there!!! every few months, they're literally just asking on public television, does it still hurt for you like it does for me? and like clockwork, someone will release new information about them or one of them will say something about each other (in my heart, he's still my best friend/yes... and teammate) and the answer will remain the same, yes, of course, always.
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cozylittleartblog · 11 months
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a little Postlet. . because i Miss them
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eyrieofsynapses · 4 months
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why Aurora's art is genius
It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.
And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.
I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.
SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???
All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3
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I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!
Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.
Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.
THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)
Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:
Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:
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Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.
I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.
If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!
Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:
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Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.
A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):
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(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)
The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—
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—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.
(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)
Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!
One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!
And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—
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—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)
Additionally, the misting here:
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We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.
A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).
Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):
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First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:
The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.
The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.
The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.
A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:
The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)
The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart
The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand
The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)
I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.
Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:
Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.
Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)
And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.
Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.
Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):
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It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:
Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.
And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.
One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.
A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.
Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?
Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):
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The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:
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What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P
Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):
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They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.
Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.
And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3
...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.
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hughmanbean · 4 months
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The Nurturing Queen and the Greedy Duke
Credit to @sky00asara in this post for this idea I love guys who are moms (if you get what I mean) This will follow the same rough story beats but will still have a little of my own flair.
The Nuturing Queen, Mother of the Wandering Princess and Erratic Prince, has been said to provide protection and inspire devotion to all who come across her. Praised as Balance and Duality personified, she is a large influence and very commonly mentioned in every scroll, book, art piece, and all magic artifacts that Constantine has seen. He's heard from so many beings of how great she is, her feats, and her being the largest connection between the Unknown Realms and Earth.
Here comes the problem. The Nurturing Queen has an enemy who's been around just as long as she has, who's also been seen not long after wherever she goes, chasing her trail and lurking. The Greedy Duke. He wishes to have her as his own, and take the throne to himself, subsequently plunging the Unknown Realms into chaos. Whenever he confronts the Nurturing Queen, legendary battles commence, and he is beat back.
But now, things are going wrong. The Lazurus Pits have been reported as acting, well, erratic. The Erratic Prince, some beings say, has been seen discussing things with the Greedy Duke. They fear his loyalties may not lie with his family.
A shift has been felt in the magics community. Unknown Realms Beings have ventured into Earth, either out of curiosity or to wreak havoc. Now, at the watchtower, JLD work out how to summon a being and demand to know what's going on, the rest of the Justice League desperate.
When they finally do summon one, they're launched into the Unknown Realms as an answer, told to "Find our Queen" as the being dissappears. They're on a floating island in a green void.
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