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art · 2 years

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Creator Spotlight: @velinxi

Hello! I’m Xiao Tong Kong, better known as “Velinxi.” I’m the creator of the webcomic Countdown to Countdown and have been doing freelance artwork since I was a teenager. I love telling stories with my illustrations! Tumblr was where I first got my start as an artist, specifically a small fandom artist as a hobby… and now I’m somehow here! When I’m not trying my best to stay awake in front of my tablets, I’m usually cooking, gaming, or sleeping. Sometimes all three, in my dreams.

Check out our interview with Velinxi below!

Did you originally have a background in art? If not, how did you start?

Yeah! I’ve basically been on track to become an artist since I was a child. I went to a middle school with an emphasis on arts and a high school specializing in it. I went to SVA briefly for computer arts but dropped out to pursue freelance and webcomics after my first year.

Over the years as an artist, what or who were your biggest inspirations behind your creativity?

My biggest inspirations growing up were Yuumei and Shilin Huang, two titans on DeviantArt back in the day. They still inspire me today, but the list of inspirations has grown exponentially over the years, including artists, movies, entire art movements, etc.

What was your thought process behind the creation of your webcomic, Countdown to Countdown?

Well, Countdown to Countdown started as a passion project back when I was 15, in high school, and pretty depressed. I just wanted to draw whatever story I thought was cool, inspired by my favorite media at the time. There was a very loose beginning and outline, but I was truly just writing as I drew the story. That’s why I had to stop the comic in 2018 and restart from scratch the year after. Now, the story has a set story and a clear outline. It still has similar roots, characters, and themes of neglect, abuse, and escape—but I think the story is a lot easier to follow now. It’s got an artstyle I can actually keep up with in the long run. The origin of why CTC exists also remains the same: I simply wanted to make a story I wanted to read for myself. Which happens to be about two dumb boys with superpowers navigating a hostile world that wants them dead or caged—together.

Have you ever had an art block? If so, how did you overcome it?

Oh, all the time. It’s part of the process. Personally, though—I just have to draw through it. Every month on my Patreon, I have my patrons vote on a theme I have to draw by the end of the month, and I try my best to make it as interesting as possible. I draw quite a few—tens even, of doodles or compositions for each of these themes to try to make something that tells a story while still being aesthetically pleasing and clear. I think pushing myself like this helps with art block, really. I also do remember to take breaks and simply consume other media I like! It gets the inspiration juices flowing.

Advice you would give to an aspiring creator?

If you do one—your first webcomic should be a short, fun, messy thing. It’s not often you can get it right the first time, but you’ll certainly learn a lot through sheer experience. This goes for a lot of things in art, to be honest.

What is a medium that you have always been intrigued by but would never use yourself?

3D Animation. I briefly learned it at SVA, and I think that’s enough of that tech for me. I accept that there are some things that are truly beautiful if done right, and I am too simple and lazy for it.

What is your goal for the rest of this year?

Get Countdown to Countdown book 2 finished! And live HAHA

Who on Tumblr inspires you and why?

@yuumei-art on Tumblr, still! They’ve been a huge inspiration for digital artists and storytellers online for years. I have no doubt that many digital artists of my generation have been influenced by them, and they’re still here, making beautiful art and stories. It’s a thing to behold.

Thanks for stopping by, Velinxi! If you haven’t seen her Meet the Artist piece, be sure to check it out here. You can also follow her for more amazing art over at her Tumblr, @velinxi!

#creator spotlight #artists on tumblr #velinxi #xiao tong kong #countdown to countdown

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catsharky · 2 months

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I am in awe of how consistently your draw characters faces?????? i struggle a lot with that, may i inquire if you have any tips to share on that front???

Sure! This took a little bit because I wanted to put some visuals together.

Unfortunately, as it always is with art, the main tip is just... practice. Not in the sense that you have to sit down and do drills, but in that the more times you draw a character, the more consistent they'll naturally start to look because you won't be figuring out how you want to draw them on the fly. Even I struggle to keep a character consistent when I first start drawing them, and it usually takes me a little bit to settle on how I want them to look. If you look back at my earlier Mass Effect comics, my Shepard looked quite a bit different then to how I draw her now. And I know it can be hard to get a sense of time from something like tumblr posts, but those changes happened across a span of six months. So be patient with yourself!

As for specifics though, I'd say the main thing that can help with consistency is to think of it less as one big whole and break it down into smaller pieces. What features need to be there for a character to read as that character? If you take something away, does it still look like them? How do their features differ from another character's?

For example, I compared Ember with my Shepard and tried to point out what goes through my mind and what I think about when I'm drawing them (besides obvious things like hairstyle/horns):

Additionally, reference!! Reference makes such a big difference. Any time I'm drawing a character, I'll pull up previous drawings I've done of them so I can check how I drew them before. I also have a small standing mirror that sits on my desk. If I'm not sure how something should look? I can just look at my own face to get an idea of what should be going on.

On top of all that (though this is something that won't apply to most original characters), because Ember is based on my in-game BG3 Tav I just have a big folder of screenshots that I've taken of her that I look at whenever I'm drawing her. I've never posted what she looks like in-game, but here she is:

(I love her so much)

I do something similar for most existing characters I draw. I have folders for each of them that are just a bunch of reference images of them at different angles, so I never have to wonder how something should look.

I hope this helps at least a little, and if anyone wants more specifics about anything, feel free to ask!

#anon ask #sharky speaks #process talk #sharky art

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hiveworks · 8 months

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Interview with Mad Rupert, author of Sakana

September 2023

Sakana, the story of life and love in a fish market, is coming back from its hiatus soon! The strip comic style webcomic began in 2010 and follows Jiro, Taisei, Yuudai, and Chie as they navigate their relationships and learn to face their feelings. We asked creator Mad Rupert, author of Robber Robert and artist of Bunt!, for an interview to celebrate the series return.

Read Sakana | Shop books & merch | Read more Hiveworks comics

Sakana has been your baby for 13 years. What has the webcomic journey been like for you over the past decade?

It really has been over a decade, hasn’t it! There have certainly been ups and downs, periods where I was updating as much as I could, and also long hiatuses. I feel like webcomics have always been an amazing space to practice my craft and stretch my writing and drawing skills alike. You can kind of do anything you like with webcomics, and oftentimes people come up with wackier, and imho more interesting concepts than if they were beholden to a large publisher. Not that I haven’t made my fair share of traditionally-published comics and graphic novels… but there’s just something so gratifying about coming up with your own wild story and working towards its end on your own time. Webcomics are incredibly tough and time consuming, but also the ultimate form of self expression.

What is the origin of Sakana? What made you want to tell this story?

Sakana actually started as a class project when I was a junior at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I had been accepted into the Sequential Art department’s yearly Japan trip to study comics and cartooning in Tokyo for a few weeks, and our final project was to create 11 comic strips based off of something that made a strong impact on us during the trip. We had visited the old inner market (now demolished) of the Tsukiji Fish Market at 4am one morning, and it was the most incredible place I’d ever been, so I decided to craft a short story that took place in the market. Beyond the first 11 strips, I decided to continue the story for as long as I could as a way to practice the comic techniques I was learning in class. That was over a decade and 600 strips ago! It really has become the most ambitious project I’ve ever undertaken.

Do you have the ending already written? Do you see a conclusion in sight?

Yes! I’ve always had something at least resembling an end in mind throughout most of the comic’s lifespan. For a long-format comic like SAKANA, I think it’s very important to have a rough ending planned out as early as possible, otherwise it becomes difficult to keep the narrative moving in a satisfying direction, drop little tidbits of plot that will pay off later, or even maintain your enthusiasm for the project. To be clear, the details of Sakana's “end” have changed many times, which is only natural with a very long project like this. But I’ve always kept crucial details the same: basically certain characters in a certain place at a certain time doing certain things (to keep from getting too spoilery haha.) HOW they get there, WHY they’re there, and WHAT exactly they’re doing will ebb and flow as the years go by and I myself get older and older. But having a general sense of the end in mind has kept things moving all this time. The story’s got one more volume to go, and then I’ll be done!

Your hiatus is a result of working on a traditionally published graphic novel, coming in 2024. Is there anything you can tell us about your book?

My new graphic novel is called Bunt! and it’s a collaborative effort between myself and my dear pal, Ngozi Ukazu (author of popular webcomic Check, Please!) Ngozi wrote the book and I drew it, and we’re both really proud of what we’ve made! It’s already available for preorder all over the place and it will officially be out in stores in February 2024. We’re really looking forward to getting out there this fall and winter and spreading the word about it!

You recently successfully completed a Kickstarter for an 18+ comic, Robber Robert, as well. What is it like balancing these different narratives, genres, and mediums of publishing comics?

It’s definitely been a struggle at times to balance everything, and I definitely don’t recommend working on 3 giant projects at the same time! I finally had to admit that I couldn’t do it all at once, which led to me putting Sakana and RR on hiatus to finish Bunt!, and then keeping Sakana on hiatus while I finished up RR. I really burned myself out on comics for a while, and it’s been a huge struggle to get myself back to a good place with my work. Finishing Bunt! and RR Chapter 1 has really helped reenergize me, but I can always feel myself trying to overload my work schedule again and again. It’s my greatest weakness as a professional artist.

What keeps you inspired?

Making something for myself, practicing my craft, and putting my own stories out there are all huge driving forces in my life. Learning to stop overwhelming myself with work has also helped a lot. Looking back on all the art I’ve made and all the different things I’ve tried makes me feel like I can do anything I put my mind to, so long as I give myself the time and space to enjoy the process.

Do you have any webcomic or graphic novel recommendations?

I’m a big fan of anything fantasy or sci-fi, especially if the narrative approaches the fantastical elements in a weird, unique, and kind of gay way haha. My favorite manga is currently Delicious in Dungeon, but I’m also a fan of historical series like Golden Kamuy and Bride’s Story. For webcomics, I love anything by Evan Dahm, like his long-format series Rice Boy and Vattu. As for Hiveworks comics, there’s too many to list individually but my current favorites are Fairmeadow by KP, and Tiger, Tiger by Petra Nordlund.

Any advice for new readers of Sakana?

I would say…despite its high page count, it’s not that long of a read! The strip format keeps it moving at a pretty quick clip when read all at once (but it certainly didn’t feel like that over the last 13 years updating one page at a time!) I know that the format and the black and white rendering might feel a little dated in the current era of Webtoons and full-color stories, but I’m too stubborn to change now, and I really appreciate anybody giving it a shot! Also, no matter who you are, or how much you dislike him in the beginning, Yuudai will probably be your favorite character.

You can read Sakana for free at sakana-comic.com and print books are available at hivemill.com

#sakana #webcomic #comic #webtoon #hiveworks #blog #interview

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mtkay13 · 10 months

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WenZhou x Memes! and, of course, some thoughts. More memes below + explanations! (Very Long Post)

You know other men?

The first one above was based on a famous "you know other men?" meme, that Bichen suggested we take part in (in the TYK community). I wanted to make ZZS smile at WKX's antics because it makes him laugh, ofc, and because he's quite fond of that wife act WKX enjoys playing so much.

The Barbie meme

Interestingly enough, this one has sparked quite a bunch of discussions online. When we had talked about making the meme for TYK!WenZhou, both Moose (@butleronice) and I thought that having ZZS as the serious one felt a bit strange. I feel like TYK!ZZS as I know him is rather goofy and would be more likely to make fun of the situation and the authorities that he doesn't take seriously.

WKX, besides in ZZS' presence, in the book, tends to act very cold and not necessarily civil--especially if you think those would be Jianghu authorities. Not saying the reverse wouldn't work, of course! But for my conception of the characters, it felt off. However--on twitter, we both received more comments than necessary saying: "This should be the opposite." "WKX should be the fun one--", etc. I have to confess that this left me worried regarding ZZS' reputation, considering that more often than not, when I make him to be the goofier, more stupid looking one, I get surprised reactions. I wonder what exactly has given him these... serious, un-fun vibes for many people.

The way I see it, in the book, ZZS is quite fun, overly civil and polite in a fake-smiley way, gets himself in absurd situations and WKX comments on him as being ridiculous and goofy. Of course, in ZZS' presence, WKX himself acts in a very extra way, but overall, in the book, WKX is quite closed-off and cold towards others, and doesn't give those vibes of being fun, extra or goofy to me. (I won't lie, I do blame the first and most popular translations for that, as they make ZZS quite stiff in the dialogs and I feel like this doesn't help...) I don't think it's a problem if people see them differently, though! But it was upsetting to see how some people did (quite rudely in some case) allow themselves to tell us how wrong we were, especially considering the time and care we both put in our decision to characterise them this way (and work on their expressions).

I recommend going to check Moose's version on her twitter as well (@butleronduty)!!

Equal strength

This one was based on a meme posted by Choco (@kwehxing) on twitter; about how this dialog would be fun for WenZhou.

I, once again, considered that yeah, maybe the default would have WKX turn any situation into a reason to fuck--but at the same time, I wondered: is it really his style? Isn't he having plenty of situations in which he can bring that up, already? I like to read ZZS as having a certain competence kink, and I think he gets off of sparring and feeling WKX's strength. I thought it fun to imagine him getting really worked up from sparring and using that as an excuse to demand fucking because OBVIOUSLY what else. I guess that to me, this is a reflection of how his mind is working.

The Tintin parody

My friend Angel brought a tintin parody comic from the @tintinades account on twitter and instagram. Here is the original. I thought it could be really fun to adapt it for WenZhou with a little twist at the end. Of course, mastering qinggong, WenZhou probably don't really need the ropes--although I think that ZCL isn't able to safely cross the road yet which is why they wanted to make a way. However, WKX clearly got distracted and went on ahead, hehe.

The distracted BF

This one was suggested by Bichen again--a classic, which worked really well and was actually quite funny when using Hoboxu.

He wants to order

This was the first meme I ever drew for WenZhou, following the "he/she wants to order" pattern. Pretty self-explanatory!

#wenzhou #tian ya ke #zhou zishu #wen kexing #meme #tyk #zzs #wkx

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witchhatgnat · 10 months

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so i've been reading the Spider-Gwen comics cause I have terminal brain worms now and like. she's been trans coded since before atsv (which i know isn't original to point out but it's fun to see). anyways, here's one of my favorite moments i've come across so far while reading

spoilers for Spider-Gwen [II] #3 (2016)

this conversation Gwen has with Jessica Drew fucks me up so bad. like the way Gwen prefaces her question and describes herself as strange and a weirdo is SOOO. and then she asks about the other Gwen Stacy and what she was like, and it reads like she's asking about what her life would be like if she was cis. and it gets couched in the language of "normal" and not, which is absolutely a trap i fall into sometimes. and then Jess says something that made me cry.

"Look, I get it. I understand dreaming of a simpler life... But, trust me. The hard times, the times when you're unsure, those are just how you figure out who you are. What your life means. Focus on today. Be the best Gwen Stacy that you can be. Right here, right now."

and when you read those words as a statement about gender and transness they hit so much harder. cause in my experience, when i'm unsure i usually find a new part of myself that i didn't know existed. it's never easy and it's almost always a little scary, but i come out the other end more sure of who i want to be and where i'm heading. Gwen needs to stop worrying about what could've been and start thinking about who she is. not other Gwens, but her specifically

#gwen stacy #spider gwen #ghost spider #spider woman #jessica drew #transgwender #trans gwen stacy #trans #trans comic #comics #comic books #spider man: across the spider verse #across the spiderverse #atsv #spiderverse #the tears i shed after reading this were unreal #jessica drew is so understanding and kind to gwen

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critterbitter · 4 months

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More asks under cut! Yippee!

@scarftale-bryan Trip for trio right? If so, I'm working on a comic for that ;0 But to help answer, I've head cannoned Elesa to originally be from Sinnoh. She and the twins didn't have the greatest first meeting, but, well, you see how they turn out later in the future so all that starts subpar ends pretty well. @bat-in-disguise NICE NAME. VERY WOOBAT THEMED. Second of all AYYYY this is where I resurrect the shambling corpse of this fandom. Please. I desperately want to have more on the train men. @mynamesaplant AH,,, YOU READ MY ONE SHOT,,, Okay look. Look. I love drawing comics as much as the next person. But if there's an interest towards fanfiction maybe I'll write a bit more... HMMM. HMMMMMMMM. (But anyways THANK YOU FOR YOUR KIND WORDS! They keep the hearth cozy.) @dracally3 Don't worry about the rambles! If you wander through my ask box, you'd see I ramble. A lot. That out the way-- I'm sorry to hear about the drama! Man. I got into submas towards the tail end, which I'm a bit sad about (wish I got to interact with some of the bigger creators, but they moved on to other hyperfixations and I respect that). Drama's scary though, so maybe it's for the best I dodged the entire canonball. I'm glad my silly little characterizations of found family are healing! And I wish you the best too-- here's to happy futures ahead free of drama and full of shenanigans. @saffalilac AYYY Togekiss is so cool! I (heh) also only drew volo's togekiss once but the fact you're the second person to talk about how much you love them makes me chuckle. That in mind, here's a doodle.

@chime-of-bells Hello! I remember your ask about saying how much you liked togekiss in my style. Drew some togekisses and thought you'd like them too :) @impossiblynoisyrebel AYYYY I LOVE drawing the eel dog lamprey dragon thing. Just. A tube with teeth. And giant eyes. and lovely fins. And bioluminescence!! Who doesn't love that? @onimusha095 Look look your local floating nightlight has SOME manners. (But also, Ingo and Litwick do come to an agreement at somepoint on who the ghost type can actively chew on. Emmet's fine with it. Elesa, who has less experience with Litwick's everything, probably would not be less fine with it, and Ingo really doesn't want to loose a friend.)

@magicfeatherbean4 Hello I see you're back! (I'm fine with this. I like snail mail from folks hhehe.) That out the way-- oh yeah they're DEFINITELY getting into fisticuffs when the mood strikes. And uhh Emmet starting battles only for Ingo to finish them off? Mercilessly? Without pause? Yes. YES. I am EATING this headcannon rn. Shuffling this into the comic ideas as we speak.

#ask #mailbox #critterbitter #togekiss

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restinsodaroni · 3 months

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I never realized how much I adore the way you draw Sun and Moon (especially Moon) until I saw the comic with Y/N and Moon where Y/N saves Moon from slipping on water whilst Y/N is chastising him about stealing from the Lost & Found again because he stole credit cards (I think) and was gonna buy new plushies that were of him and Sun for Y/N. The realization just hit me whilst reading it, the way you design and write them and their interactions with Y/N is amazing! I just love gremlin Moon!

Oh yeah I played up Moon's gremlin personality for that comic lol.

I actually toned down his personality some from when I used to just draw things and not post them lol. So this Moon is slightly calmer than how I originally drew him 😅

I enjoy drawing Sun and Moon having silly shenanigans with Y/N hahaha. I'm happy you like how I interpret the Daycare Attendant! 🫶

#restinsodaroni art #restinsodaroni ask replies #reply art #Gremlin Moon FOREVER!!#restinsodaroni’s queue

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jccatstudios · 7 months

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SoC Comic Adaptation and General FAQ

General

Who are you?

Hi, I'm Claire (she/they)! I'm currently studying to become a professional comic creator. I love drawing fashion, expressive characters, and anti-hero action.

Where else can I find your work?

You can find all my work on my website! I'm also on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Tiktok (sometimes...). You can find my fan art under the handle jccatstudios, and my original art under jcscottart (only on Instagram and Twitter).

How can I support your work?

Besides supporting my work through your lovely comments and reblogs, you can help monetarily support me on Ko-Fi. Your support helps fund my college education.

Six of Crows: A Comic Adaptation

Why are you doing this?

Ever since I read the duology, I always thought it would make a great graphic novel series. When my professor encouraged me to start a webcomic, I took the opportunity to make the comic I imagined into reality. I want to see the whole series illustrated through comics one day. If I got the chance to make the official adaptation, that would be one of my biggest dream projects. I'm also using this project as an opportunity to improve my skills before I graduate.

Will you post it on (insert webcomic platform)?

Probably not. Most online comic platforms are meant for scroll format, and I'm making a traditional format comic. Plus, I post on so many sites already, so I think adding another would take too much time out of actually creating the comic.

Will you draw the whole book/series?

I wish I could! Since I'm not doing this full-time or professionally, that's quite unlikely. It would take years to complete it full-time, who knows how long as a hobby. I'd love to add a six-volume SoC graphic novel series to my shelf, but that of course can't be done without some serious backing. I'm currently working on adapting Chapter 3.

Where's Chapter 1: Joost?

I never drew it! I started with Chapter 2: Inej because I wanted to draw the main characters first. The first chapter of the comic is the second chapter of the book. I name the comic chapters after the book chapters just to make it clear which part of the book they correspond to.

Can I repost your art, use your art for layouts/edits, etc?

Yes, you may with visible credit. If you use it for your profile layout, put my handle in your bio. If you're reposting it or using my art for edits/collages, put my handle in the description. As long as it's for personal use, you can use my art. Do not sell copies of my art, use it in merch, or use it for any sort of monetary gain. Do not use my art for prompting or generating images.

Can I use your character designs and headcanons in fanart, fanfic, etc?

Absolutely! Please tag me if you do. I don't need credit since I didn't create any of these characters, but I definitely want to see what you create. :D

How do you make the comic?

The comic is made with mostly traditional methods with some digital editing. I pencil and ink all of the pages on bristol board. I mainly use the G-pen nib for characters and technical pens for the backgrounds. Once I scan the pages, I do light adjustments to the line art and correct any mistakes. The gray tones come from a single sheet of ink wash adjusted to be lighter or darker. The bubbles and lettering are all digital.

If anything else comes up, I'll add it here! Feel free to send me an ask if you have a question that isn't on this post.

#faq #soc comic adaptation

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xx-vergil-xx · 18 days

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Can I ask what pushed you to end Hounds the way you did? It's a fantastic ending, but I'm curious. I expected the Fates to revive Dream, or allow him to inhabit a new form (such as one made by Daniel, so that Dream becomes a dreamthing), etc. But instead, his death is made to have never happened. Which makes it partly feels like Hob's whole road trip journey was for nothing since he lost all those memories and connections with Matthew, the Corinthian, Delirium, Despair, Desire, Death, etc. (thank god he kept the farmhouse). But it's almost like he traded all those memories and connections for Dream. Unless I missed something while reading (I was crying very hard).

Again, fantastic ending, and I'm also glad it's a happy ending. But I'm curious as to why you didn't go in the other direction

howdy! thanks very much for the ask — an excellent query, one which i’m happy to answer

(verg of the future: this answer ended up long! there’s a short form at the top here and at the end <3)

in brief: he did make that trade you described! but not strictly for dream — it was the price of swapping genres!

an explanation:

what i had in mind while planning and writing was less the idea of erasure of prior narrative action and more a subversion of the expected genre, in particular the genre tropes that follow dream in the original arc of the comics, where his story is very classically tragic (with the understood weaving of hob into that tragedy, this being a dream/hob telling and all)

for reference, i also drew a lot of inspiration for hob’s road trip odyssey from the aeneid, an epic that is, yes, about the founding of rome but also (at least to my reading) a fundamental tragedy — the cost of founding rome is aeneas’ home, many of his friends, much of his core family, and the very end of the story is not some victorious depiction of the glory of rome to be (which we do get earlier in the book, with the ekphrasis on his shield) but aeneas, overcome with fury and loss, killing a man who begs his mercy. i’ve always felt that the aeneid, while certainly stepped in the expected amount of roman nationalism, is centrally about a single man and his singular suffering as an instrument of higher destiny.

i wanted to model hob’s arc around the aeneid (minus, y’know, some of the chunks that are strictly battle sequences <3) both because intertextuality is a huge part of how i wanted to handle hounds (story about stories, made of other stories, etc), but also because hob and aeneas are fundamentally parallel characters — nomads with exceptional ordinances, permanently displaced by the passing whims of higher powers, men who are made to reckon with both extraordinary wonder and extraordinary tragedy regularly while still, at their core, just being human. that’s what makes aeneas so compelling — he’s just a man. and so is our beloved hob — that’s his whole thing, his whole narrative function and his whole central ideal, humanity

so then, approaching hounds with both the thought of the sandman’s original tragic contours (see: the whole lead-in to daniel. christ above is the way that goes devastating to read) and the man vs fate core of the aeneid, i was considering a lot of things about how to mess around with both notions without gutting them entirely. i tend to dislike tragedies that become un-tragic without some sort of Serious Payment For It (not to say i don’t like happy stories because i very much do! but i get ticked off when high stakes get deflated too quickly) and i didn’t want to undermine the very real fact that the Fates are typically not versed in notions of empathy and/or leniency, and that dream and hob and those around them did experience and endure devastation and loss, and that death is a fact typically immune to argument.

the world of sandman is not one with easy answers, and to my mind there’s no such thing as a bargain with the Fates where you break even. for hob to get what he wanted, something had to be given, something dear and vital and real. there’s more to what hob actually gives the Fates than he verbally stipulates, which i tried to address largely via the corinthian and his perception of the situation, especially those last conversations with dream in the “swamp”. i have a lot of options about the corinthian in his function as “dark mirror” having a blistering clarity of understanding much of the time, which is why i foisted the onus of those complexities onto his dialogue, rather than hob, who (and i say this with love) is a creature of bias and often blinded to greater repercussions of his actions insofar as they extend beyond his immediate objectives/enjoyments, or dream, who can see the bigger picture but i think often really keeps himself from doing so when it comes to anything at all that’s personal (king of stories has a blindspot for his own). what hob gives the Fates actually costs him almost nothing, in the long run, if we operate with the idea that he cannot remember, nor is there any lasting effect from, his 600-ish heavily-relived years. there’s narrative and symbolic weight, of course — he gives them love as an oath and as nostalgia (sidebar: his driving force is an almost pre-nostalgia, a continual love of the moment as the moment is passing, but anyway) (cuff links), he gives them in a captured moment the lovely discomfort and simultaneous brilliance of being alive (the hook, the finger prick the blood), and he gives them a rich and complicated experience of humanity (those 600 years). but practically, what is actually taken from him that he doesn’t just get back?

only those few months — and in them, a web of real and known connections, all of which matter, and all of which change his understanding of and relationship to things like grief, and loneliness, and fear, and forgiveness. those are important changes, real changes, that would affect how he operates in the world going forward. that development is gone. he returns instead to the (of course, fought-for and hard-won) stasis of what was, which becomes what will always be. in making the Fates and their judgement more complex, he has actually made his own life less complex. now, i’m not going to sit here and argue that “suffering has inherent value” or some shit like that because i think that’s bullshit! pain is just pain. but he does lose experiences which would have shaped him in new ways, and, i think, good ways. even important ways

and he may well be shaped towards similar courses with dream (especially re: learning that lesson about loneliness — i think hob suffers from the curse of always, ultimately, being alone (immortality etc there’s so much discourse about this), and the road trip was in part about him learning that though it is the simplest path it is neither the sole nor the best path), but he certainly doesn’t learn them the same way, with the same faces, with the same acuity and clarity and intensity.

the thing with the Fates (to me anyway) is that you don’t ever just win. maybe you can get what you want, but it’s not easy (it make take a thousand repetitions of your lifetime until friction and the touch of your hands wears the sisyphean boulder down to a pebble — like the parable of the bird scraping its beak on the mountain), and it’s sure not free.

so yes, those months are lost. that’s a big part of the price. and we don’t know, at the end, how much of that thing he really gave ultimately comes back — his new relationship depths with deanna or cori or the other endless, those things aren’t seen. the main arc is resolved — hob and dream — but there are still pieces missing. he loses a piece of his human experience, he gets tossed back around through the wringer of his life (which is often distinctly not pleasant), and he is, as he ever was, a character with a path whose impetus and dictation rest heavily on external forces. even in attempting to channel his life elsewhere, he still has to bargain, and is still subject to the choices of the fates, and in some ways the story remains irrevocably a tragedy, in that one way or another it has loss in a central place. in the latter half of hounds hob really became my attempted version of an aeneas type — a man with a quest and a fated directive, a deeply human and flawed individual, who can alter the path and even irrevocably change the genre of his own narrative, but only at cost.

of course let’s be clear! some of all the actual rendering of this ended up as it did partly because i am not always a clean writer, and for that i apologize! but i did genuinely want that sense of gaps — of faces and voices given over to the gravitational well of the principal narrative arc of hob/dream versus the Fates. i think those things are gone. the narrative is forcibly re-centered around hob and dream, and in doing this — in shifting the story genre — other ties and bonds are not just cut, but unwoven entirely. when you change the kind of story you’re telling, the change is done at the expense of something else. kind of like how there’s a fixed amount of matter in the universe? you can’t create or destroy matter — to make something new you have to take from another place. (sidebar: wow i’m realizing something about my fundamental storytelling beliefs right now! laws of physics! anon your ask has really got my cylinders firing, and most sincerely thank you <3)

still, they might come back. though i didn’t write it as fully as i could have (i will freely admit there was a great deal of burnout at play towards the end there), i had a lot of thoughts re: repetition and density, namely that if you stack a thousand repetitions of a lifetime against each other it’s the equivalent of writing a word over and over and over on a page. when you erase it, the channels remain. language flows most naturally in the direction once etched for it. maybe hob learns those same lessons and knows the same people in the same way — maybe he and the corinthian find that odd patch of common ground, maybe he takes a long drive with delirium through rural maryland. maybe there are echoes. maybe even if it is gone what was still shapes the topography. maybe a kindness or a word exchanged still ring out when you can’t see them or remember them. while the milestones of our lives rippled the most visibly, i think we’re shaped a thousandfold ways by accumulations of small things we can’t distinctly remember. only a feeling of a thing, or the negative space it leaves.

well. tl;dr — i didn’t want to let hob get away without actually giving anything up, nor without his choice to bargain affecting others besides himself in equally irrevocable ways (sidebar: at his core is a selfishness that is both charming and ignoble — he wants to do a good thing for dream but also he makes a call that changes a plenitude of lives other than his own, and i don’t think he really asks, he just does — grey areas are his whole gig to me), because nobody makes a deal with the Fates for free, and changing genre has a price tag. it was my effort to make the tone of the whole beast more authentically sandman-esque, since sandman does a lot of that sort of water-muddying, especially when using understood narrative models/archetypes/etc etc

i am. sorry this was as long as it is! jesus! but i’m sending it off all the same. anyways, anon, thanks very much not only for your lovely kind words and the high honor of your tears (no pulitzer could mean more to me than knowing a thing i wrote really moved someone, seriously thank you) but also for giving me a blank check to go buck wild and ramble about my own damn writing and Things I Just Think <3 i hope you have a lovely day/morning/noon/night, and thanks a bunch for dropping by <3 <3 <3

#the sandman #hob gadling #dream of the endless #dreamling #hounds #vergil says hello #vergil says way more than fuckin hello tbh #vergil writes a manifesto woukd be a better line for this #anon has given me the greatest gift: License To Monologue #fingers crossed any of that actually answered the question at hand #thanks for saying hi and asking things because i love both experiences immensely #<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

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jojo-schmo · 4 months

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A Walk Down my Art Memory Lane!

Now that I’m thinking about my childhood Kirby art, I dug through my storage a bit and thought it’d be fun to share a few! Here are some of Baby Jojo’s drawings!

note: I was not active in any online Kirby art communities at the time and I never posted these anywhere so I made these drawings just for my own enjoyment hehehe.

These are probably among my earliest Kirby drawings. Most likely ~2008!! I must’ve been in fifth grade maybe…? The first picture is a very rare example of pre-2022 Dedede sightings in my art. Around 2010 I became embarrassed and frustrated about not being able to figure his shapes out. So I spent the next 12 years avoiding him at all costs and instead sticking to the safer things to draw, like nice round Bronto Burts or Waddle Dees. Who knew it would take me writing an entire comic about him in 2022 to finally learn to draw him in my style!! :P

The second picture speaks for itself lol. I was the girl who googled “maskless meta knight” back when we had no fancy 3D renderings of his face. Just edits of anime screenshots and fanart of him holding his mask/getting his mask stolen and looking at you with the biggest, pearliest, white eyes. JPEG artifacts littered these images like sprinkles on a cupcake. And I would giggle and squee with every one like the baby fangirl of Meta Knight I was. :3

This one was probably ~2009. Very ambitious piece for me at that age. I struggled with the perfect roundness of Kirby haha. I had just gotten these cool alphabet stencils and couldn’t wait to write “Kirby” everywhere with them. This was probably the complete catalogue of Kirby characters I had the ability to draw at that time. It’s funny to think about how Magolor wouldn’t exist for another two years when I drew this.

Hmm. Maybe I should redraw this one day as a fun honor for my younger self.

Triple Waddle Dees!! A rare but precious Sailor Dee sighting, and of course my sweet Bandana Dee. This was probably around 2011 after Return to Dreamland came out and I came to adore Bandee. :3

This is probably around 2012- some time after Mass Attack came out. I had this AU at the time where each of the 10 Kirbies from Mass Attack had their own personality trait from the original Kirby, and a permanent copy ability assigned to them. Hence the Spark Kirby having wings and a halo like in the game- where you get damaged and have to rescue the poor Angel Kirbies before you lose that life!

Also my Poppy Bro Jr OC that I don’t think I named at the time- but I redrew him recently and named him Allegro the Poppy Bro. I loved drawing his hair and his funny teeth :D

Finally, I redrew just a few of the characters from my old drawings tonight. Just doodling for fun, nothing serious. But it’s something my child self would be happy to know I could do.

Guess I’d better draw all the Dededes that Baby Jojo missed out on drawing!! Thank you to anyone who read to this point. I encourage anyone to draw things that would make their younger, baby self proud of you. ….even though I bet they already are proud of you. <3

Remember, as long as you keep drawing, you’ll improve at your pace! Just keep at it! You’ll notice that difference over the years!

#if this is interesting to anyone I’d love to share more of my childhood art haha it’s fun for me!#I can even show off my very first Kirbysona from like 12 years ago :3 #very different than the bubble witch I am today hehe #irl content #jojo rambles #art #king dedede #bandana waddle dee #meta knight #ribbon #marx kirby #Kirby #kirby series #Kirby oc

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togetogetogepi · 4 months

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Primera sangre; Barrenclan's manuscripts - Asphodelpaw (from Pinepaw and the Forgotten World)

Another awesome read in the works! This time is PATFW, a story written and illustrated by Razmerry, originated from a clan generator challenge. You can read the comic here @barrenclan and watch the very first video here https://youtu.be/PXYqVdXKVx0?si=1q4I_DVbBrzlfWD1 .

Barrenclan is formed by a small group of cats that live together in a desolate wasteland, struggling to survive. Pinepaw, our main character and healer apprentice, feels the need to discover why they're trapped in such a suffocating place, both literally and metaphorically speaking, so he can change his clanmates's future for the better. What's waiting outside their territory? Will Pinepaw be able to find his place in his clan? And who's this mysterious Cormorantpaw?

What I drew is down below. Warnings for: spoilers of issue 32, blood, animal death, throat injury (all in a cartoon style).

I was inspired by Mozarabic art found in manuscripts (very pretty, sadly I didn't come close to recreate it correctly), and I got the idea of the last Barrenclan's survivors trying to recreate their history through a codex, recalling the first deaths that preceded their clash with Defiance. "Primera sangre" means "first blood" and is a term used by hunters to determine who gets the hunted animal based on the first injury it had. I thought it fitted Asphodel in that regard, due to the nature of the Defiance and the fact that, even if other animals harm her corpse, the killer will always be Rainhaze, her own uncle.

It's safe to say that this death hurt me like a brick to the face (in a good way!). Asphodel was my favourite in terms of design and development, and it was so refreshing to see a female character talk about how she simply didn't want to be a mother, even if her surroundings pressured her to it. I wish she was alive to develop further, but that's what happens when you write a cruel story, good characters die. Let's hope that her sister Daffodil is more lucky! I may draw her another time, because she's adorable and her conflicts are so interesting (and harsh, sadly).

#asphodelpaw #barrenclan #warriors oc #not my oc #not my character #my art #tw blood

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bamsara · 2 years

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Can we get some behind the scenes writing stuff from your already published chapters? Like anything you had to cut completely or anything else you've wanted to talk about with them?

OK SO, I have a LOT to talk with my first/bullet point drafts vs final chapters

I've deleted/written over the first draft/bullet draft of a lot of my chapters already but I can make a list of things that were originally supposed to be different and/or the scenes were in different places originally and then switched around for better flow of reading

--Roxy was the one to originally run into Reader on their way out of the daycare and help them prevent from running into Monty the night of the argument, but the scene had too much dialogue-needed tension and with staff-bot I felt like it was a good way to show that the staffbots favor the reader and see them as a friend.

--The original meeting between Freddy and Reader where they have their soft moment was supposed to happen RIGHT AFTER Monty's arugment scene, and Sun/Moon scene where they were emotionally distant afterwards because of slight jealously/Moon's hurt that Y/N isn't as good of a friend with him than Freddy, I even drew a comic about it. I realized Moon dealing with his guilt would be more fitting, and Sun and Moon being supportive of the Reader reconnecting with friends is more in-character, and them being upset about Freddy instead of the situation was not-character-fitting for them.

--Originally, there was supposed to be a chase scene with Moon and Reader in chapter 7 instead of the security office scene, but I scrapped that first. Felt like it took away the chance to learn more about Moon and made him look like he was unable to show any restraint, kinda killing the whole ‘we can fight against the virus’ sort of splill. Still being in danger, but not running away and not attacking in the office scene feels more decisive as a plot turning point and tense, so I liked it better.

--I had a scene written where Reader is teasing Moon through the Daycare’s glass window, then turn away to continue cleaning. A minute later when they turn back, he’s still there, but it takes the Reader a moment to realize that Moon is now standing on the OTHER SIDE of the glass, non-chalant, waiting for Y/N to realize the danger they’re in while being his sneaky, quick and jerk-self before Reader throws the mop at him. Funny scene, but scrapped it because before the turning point in security office scene. It kinda killed the ‘safe-interactions with Moon in controlled enviroments that lead to friendship progression’ thing. Might still use it later though.

--Sun originally did not pickpocket the security card from the Reader and only was supposed allude to his knowledge of their snooping and later plans (beat around the bush while Y/N also did that), and was just going to be sad and do vague goodbyes as the Reader left to the security office. I rewrote that because it lacked substance for him where there was room for relationship development, the back-and-forth in vagueness was all built up tension with no climax and to show how Sun responded to lies/tense situation and circumstances while also giving him a chance to act against his counterpart’s wishes and put trust into the Reader instead.

--You know those Fazbear-ears from Chapter 2? Reader was supposed to have other ‘uniform ascessories’ they were required to wear every so often depending on their tasks for the day, but it started to get a little confusing/flooded. The ears were supposed to come back several times, but I keep scrapping them out. They’ll come back eventually, and it won’t be anything super important, but Sun and Moon do have some dialogue for it. Everything from this trinket page for Solar Lunacy will show up at some point though.

--In chapter 3, where Moon is hunting the Reader in the Daycare, I had a scene where Reader was very, very slowly trying to scoot down a tube slide as quietly as possible to get to the exit only to hear soft bells and a creak above them, and realize that Moon was moving slowly with them, at the same space and same spot, right outside the tube and crawling on top of it like a spider, and even moving backwards to match the Reader when they scoot backwards into the tube. Supposed to be a horror realization moment, but I liked the ‘pssp pssp pssp’ at the edge of the tunnel too much.

--The amount of times I’ve completely scrapped changed Sun’s dialogue more than once for what’s written so far is too many times I can count

--I have....so much first draft funsies and ideas that don’t get put into the final draft that aren’t included here lmao. Including memes and jokes I’ve basically put down just for myself

I have some other stuff that I’ve scrapped and some scenes that got rewritten, some details that were plucked and placed elsewhere but I don’t want to bombarde people’s dashes with a super long post so I’ll leave it with these sldkghslkdhglskdhg

#Solar Lunacy

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racefortheironthrone · 4 months

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Considering superhero comics predate the invention of spandex, when did the idea that superhero costume are made from spandex come from?

Great question!

To answer this question, I first need to backup and do some history about fin-de-siècle strongmen and the origin of the "superhero costume" as a distinct cultural concept. In the late 19th/early 20th century, circus strongmen were not just huge draws but celebrities and cultural icons in their own right, part of the whole obsession of anxious masculinity in that era, along with the emergence of bodybuilding and quite a bit of racist eugenics (think "Passing of the Great Race" stuff) about how industrial civilization was making white men effete and degenerate and thus vulnerable to the Other.

However, the strongmen had something of a fashion problem: in order to do their shtick, they often wore close-fitting silk tights and shirts in order to show off their musculature, and these had a tendency to split when they were flexing. This could run the risk of leaving the strongmen hanging in the wind, as it were, so they adapted by putting on wrestler's unitards over their tights to keep themselves under wraps.

Throw on a cape, and you literally have the archetypal superhero costume. But if you take a look at how these costumes look on an actual human body, they're not literally skin-tight. You can see some muscle definition in places, but there's also visible wrinkles and folds at the joints and other places where you need more flexibility. It's just not quite there yet in terms of evoking the whole George Sandow aesthetique.

And then in 1958, spandex was invented as a much more elastic fabric that could be truly skintight without splitting, so you could really see the musculature much more clearly. Add this to the expanding and increasingly professionalized and advanced culture of postwar bodybuilding, and people's expectations about what their superheroes could and should look like began to change. Thus, starting in the Silver Age and into the Bronze Age, superheroes start to look a lot buffer and their costumes look a lot tighter so that the reader can see every damn muscle (and curve) on superheroes' bodies - because artists and editors and publishers realized they could make more money by making comics that were a bit sexier, thanks to the magic of "spandex."

Now this gets us into the economics of the comics industry and changing generational cohorts, but as we passed from the Silver Age to the late Bronze Age, you started to see a shift from comics artists who worked in comics because Jews and Catholics weren't welcome in the Art Departments of Madison Avenue, to comics artists who worked in comics because they had grown up reading comics and learned to draw from comics.

This had an impact on superhero costumes, because the older artists tended to be plugged in more to fashion and fashion art and thus drew superhero costumes as clothing with real three-dimensionality to it and the younger artists found it easier and faster to just draw familiar superhero bodies naked (with "spandex" as the figleaf) and then put in a few lines showing where the costumes end - and this easier and faster style that turned up the dial on allowable sexiness was more profitable for the companies.

Once you get to Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, and the other "Image Kids" of Nineties Comics, the spandex-ification of superhero comics had reached its peak because now the hot new trend was stuff that wouldn't work even with real-world spandex, hence the phenomena of the boob sock and the logical extension of the swimsuit/bikini for superwomen to the battle thong.

So ultimately it all comes down to the combined pressures of culture and economics.

#comics #comics meta #superhero costumes #silver age #bronze age #nineties comics #cultural history #superhero comics #marvel #dc #marvel meta #dc meta #image comics

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