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steve0discusses · 3 years

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Yugioh S5 Ep 20: Yugi’s Senshi Outfit

So I’ve been doing a lot of work, and I haven’t looked at the blog for a hot minute and when I finally checked back in to do these posts I noticed something on my tumblr was just blowing up. I got all excited thinking “oh shoot, Did I draw something right??” and instead, it was a random post I made about the bootspants from season 1. Three years later, resurrected from the grave and covered in...thousands of notes? I don’t understand how this website works.

Anyways, the comments are mostly good, but a little bit wild. A lot of people seem to think I would know what Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is, when I’m an adult who is still watching the first 5 seasons of Yugioh. (I will never have time to watch Jojo,) and then some other people started talking about Actual Card Mechanics that went...completely beyond my comprehension. But then there was one person. One person who said one thing, and brought it all together.

Poots.

The boots that are pants.

Poots.

I can’t believe I looked at all the different combinations, but a Poots never crossed my brain.

It is so perfect, so cathartic, although it took 3 years to get there.

Poots.

Anyways, we’re in S5 and unfortunately not in poots anymore, Yugi is now dressed in a tupperware container from hell and they have wandered into a desert. On cue, Grandpa has an injury, but at least this time it’s not his ass.

You know how there’s artists who do hyper-realistic versions of pokemon monsters with detailed bone structure and muscle anatomy? I dare them to look at this orb and tell me how the hell it has wings. Like go ahead and try and pin a spine down on that thing. I’ll wait.

(read more under the cut)

So Joey decides to sprint down this endless desert with just boundless positivity.

Over the edge of this sand dune is a whole bunch of huts,just random civilization out in the middle of no where.

One girl walks over and it’s a look.

She’s really the only one here who can talk, and she just seems...so incredibly bored to be here. A whole lot of Wednesday Addams energy. She leads them into a hut where an old guy pulls a scroll out of blue fire. As you do.

Again, this arc should have been a video game, because while it’s something to get the player interested if there’s some riddle they have to solve to progress, when you’re watching a TV show, it’s not like I’m the one solving the riddle. The format is honestly one of the downers of this arc, tbh.

It has strong “I played a D+D sesh and made a webcomic out of it vibe” and I know I just called out like half of you, but listen, I will not take it back.

This episode, our gimmick is some asshole is going to be yelling at us from the other end of the map, just shouting in the background for the entirety of the episode like that tangible human skull meme.

Then Wednesday Addams hands over yet another MacGuffin because why not?

Tea can twin it up with Yugi now. Her necklace doesn’t seem haunted, but it’s only a matter of time. (also her necklace looks so freakin terrible, we’ll see it later and I’ll have a lot more to say because wtf it looks like some sort of polly pocket.)

I’m not 100% that the voice that shouts at us from the end of the hall this episode is Mokuba’s voice actress. But I’m 99% positive it is, or Mokuba’s voice is just really that type of vibe.

Stuff happens, and it felt like card duel stuff, so I’m gonna skip over the part where they pulled out their duel monsters one by one, since the fight was pointless anyway because the worms can turn you into stone. So Yugi and Pharaoh decide to have a chat about it because their plan is clearly not working.

This is when Pharaoh has a vivid lucid daydream, which seems like something that would have been more convenient before he ended up turning into stone on the floor of some desert. But, hallucinations never come when they’re convenient on this show. They usually come during card games, tbh.

Imagine with me that you’re dreaming of like...an old ass greek guy who is 99% Alexander the Great. Imagine he tells you to fuse with a sentient paper card that you already carry around in a weird capsule.

Please

For the love of all that is holy

Do not think about what it means to fuse with the Dark Magician.

Dark Magician is...he “exists” but he’s like not even a person. There seem to be whole fleets of dark Magicians, which are all the same guy, just cloned, right? Or maybe they’re a family? Or like...I don’t freakin know. Like they’re all hanging out together in some card dimension so it’d be more like fusing with the guy who dresses like Barney the dinosaur instead of actually Barney. Like he’s more of like a concept than a dude, but apparently you can just introduce him to your...whatever this armor is supposed to be, and Dark Magician turns into a Super Suit.

I want to express my thanks to the Yugioh team for not putting Yami in his underoos. Hell, they didn’t even take off his jacket. I do not know what art directer ok’d this for animation and said “yeah, this won’t kills us if we animate it.” but that is a hell ton of lines and design right there. Yeah they have 3d, and probably had to 3d that staff...but that doesn’t mean you don’t end up drawing it, in the end--you still have to draw over your 3d. You still have to draw literally everything.

Anyway, when we get to the eye of the storm. The secret to getting there was that you have to fly, which again--3/5 of these guys already have a monster that can fly. We can finally tell the voice at the end of the hall to stop yelling because it’s really bothering all the townspeople, and then move on with the quest.

Everyone else was stone during this. So when they un-petrified they kinda looked over at Yugi and were like “how freakin long was I out???”

But youknow, Yugi’s 2 people, so it’s fine. So long as you don’t get down to the third bastard still sitting around in there.

After this, our NPCs vanish, and the show pushes us directly forward. No time for them to piss off a land turtle or set a bunch of wolves on fire. Just get out of the desert and freakin go.

I’m just so bothered by this random ass huge chunky necklace.

It’s like the size of your freakin fist. And it’s just...a pentagon. Congrats Tea, you have a fake ass plastic necklace. I guess it’s so that when we’re far away we can still see it on her chest but like...This show loves huge ass necklaces, and they’re all basic ass shapes. We got a pyramid, the Kaiba’s wear squares, Bakura wears a circle with kind of phallic bits hanging off of it and this is just...it’s literally just a pentagon.

I guess Ishizu wore a wadjet and Duke has an indecipherable clown as his necklace. But man...the Yugioh necklace game is just a lot of shapes.

And so we continue on with this filler arc, which is also a pokemon arc, and even secretly has a Sailor Moon arc just stuffed in there for funsies. This arc is weird.

Also, I brought up the human skull so I legally have to post this.

youtube

Anyway, here’s a link to read these in chrono order, in case you just got here: https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

And I’m off to drink a bin of ice water because it is 5 billion degrees right now in this house.

#ygo #yugioh #yu gi oh #episode recap #photo recap #S5 #Ep 20 #yugi muto #yami #grandpa muto #tea gardner #and her new accessory #tristan taylor #joey wheeler #and that time that Yami fused with dark magician and we all acted like that wasn't extremely weird

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aftermathdb · 5 years

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DEATH BATTLE Review: Mega Man Battle Royale.

Cue the Mega Man 2 theme!

Five robots. All with the name Mega Man. Time to find out which one is the strongest one there is!

Mega Man Classic Preview.

We all know this story. Doctor Light created several robots to try and help out the world at large. But then that dastardly Doctor Willy took them, and made them evil. To combat this, we got the first, the classic, the original… Mega Man.

And we even get to go over his many… many weapons. Thanks to his variable weapons system, Rock has a plethora of firepower to work with, and a lot of variety to utilize in a fight.

From his trust Mega Buster, to his various elemental weapons, Rock has an answer for everything. And his Gear System from 11 can give him an extra edge up.

And if he’s ever in a pickle, Rock can call up his trusty companion, Rush to give him an edge up.

And if you’re wondering about feats, Rock has plenty to work with.

Though, of course, he does have his fair share of weaknesses. He’s not necessarily invincible, his weapons have limited ammunition, and he wasn’t designed for combat.

But in the end, Mega Man is a power house. If a crazy German is trying to take over the world, there’s only one man to call:

The Mega Man.

Mega Man X Preview.

And we fast forward into the future, where Doctor Cain, discovers a new kind of replicated human called a reploid. These beings had A.I.s so great, that they were practically human. But then some of them ended up going… Maverick.

In order to combat this new threat, Cain called in Sigma. But, we all know how well that went. So he went with the backup plan: Mega Man X.

X, surprise surprise, has a Mega Buster, and the ability to copy other weapons. And he’s specifically built to be better than the OG Mega Man……… So we already know two of the combatants that are going down, right?

But, he’s still got weapon energy to worry about. But he’s got plenty of weapons to choose from. And if he needs some extra firepower, X can call upon his Ultimate Armor.

This gives him extra firepower, and channels his inner Street Fighter fan and lets X use legendary moves like the Hadoken and the Shoryuken.

And of course, he’s got feats. That healing though… That would make him hard to put down.

But in the end, if a nutball virus that’s controlling a powerful robot is trying to take over the world, there’s only one man to call:

Mega Man X.

Mega Man. Volnutt Preview.

So, fast forward again, and we land in a new year where the Earth has flooded. And we all basically died because we got that shitty. Hey, if we had a bunch of wars that ended up killing everyone, and kept letting the top 1% run the show, I’d say that we deserve it.

But the humans on a space station were basically running the whole thing. But then they died too. Except for one, called The Master. And his Carbon known as Mega Man Trigger. And The Master decided that the Carbons deserved to run the planet, since there are more of them. But then a bunch of crazy stuff happened, and left Trigger without his memories thanks to a being named Sera, and left him on Earth. This left him stranded, and the new natives gave him the dumbest name they could think of: Volnutt.

God this is weird.

So, he decided to battle evil, stop the Master System, and try to regain his lost memories.

The downside to his special weapons is that they all draw from the same power source, and that they have to be swapped out manually.

But he’s got a list of feats to pull from to win the day.

In the end, if you need a man to be stranded on the moon for nearly two decades, there’s only one man to call:

Mega Man Volnutt.

MegaMan.EXE Preview.

In an alternate timeline, Doctor Light, now known as Tadashi Hikari, focused on the internet and digital A.I instead of robotics. His work would create an entire universe known as the Cyber-World that would be managed by A.I systems called NetNavis, and one kid named LAN would get one of the strongest Navis of all: Mega Man.EXE.

Like all the Mega Men before him, Hub has a Mega Buster, and can even grab enemy weapons for his own weapons system thanks to the Battle Chips he has on hand.

And with over 1,500 Battle Chips, LAN and .EXE have basically an army’s worth of weapons to choose from.

And since .EXE is a digital program, and not an organic being, he’s survived a ton of punishment.

And in case you’re wondering “Wait! He’s digital. Can he even fight in the real world?”- The answer is “Yes.”

.EXE has been able to come to the real world on a few occasions, and has even fused with LAN through Full Synchronization. And with Perfect Synchro (No relation to Yu-Gi-Oh), .EXE can even retain his weapons and abilities. This is a good thing, considering all the crazy feats that .EXE has on hand.

And as it turns out, .EXE is actually LAN’s stillborn baby brother turned into a computer program, which helps with that whole “Perfect Synchro” thing. Which means that the planet-busting Cybeast exploding comes around to that number you see up there.

But at the end of the day, when a bunch of evil viruses are trying to destroy an entire cybernetic universe, there’s only one man to call:

MegaMan.EXE.

Starforce Mega Man (Geo) Preview.

Going ahead a few more years (Give or take a hundred or two), humanity has moved past cyberspace and onto radio waves. But then a guy named Kelvin Stellar got kidnapped by a bunch of FM-ians, or FM Aliens… God what the fuck happened to this franchise?- What’s wrong with a young robot fighting evil robots to save the world?- Was it not big enough?

Anyways, to fight back against these… FM-ians, Geo ended up merging with another form of these guys who is apparently an AM-Ian named Omega. Because a cyber-being named after a Greek letter of the alphabet is always someone you can trust. But they merged into a brand new being known as Starforce Mega Man

(Wow. First Hub, and now Geo. What do these guys have against ghosts?- I know what jooke I’m using whenever Danny Phantom shows up (And for those of you wondering, he’s not in the next battle)).

But, as a being that is composed of EM waves, Geo can effectively be unseen, unheard, and untouched by any other human beings.

And thankfully, this Mega Buster has some differences from the others. Like how it automatically charges up on its own, but it can be modified to change it’s power, speed, and status effects.

Anyways, onto the rest of the weapons. And with 600+ equips, Geo has an arsenal on his hand at all times.

And he can even control “Noise” a term used to describe excess energy created by EM Beings. He can even absorb a lot of it to access a super form known as “Red Joker” who can scatter your remains across the atmosphere after he uses a blast that turns you into EM Particles. Yeesh, remind me to never piss off any aliens made up of EM Particles. You never know which ones might end up having that form or ability on hand, er… appendage?- What would an EMbeing call those anyways?

With all that power, Geo and Omega have a resume to boot. They’ve taken on plenty of enemies. Including a being that could move a black hole that was 4 million times bigger than the sun.

And Geo tanked attacks from Sirius (The one that did that)! In order to pull off a feat like that would require over 4.6 Decillion Megatons of TNT. Looks like Optimus now places second for how largest amount of force one can output to Geo.

And since other EMBeings can move from the center of the Milky Way to Earth in about three days. Putting them over three million times the speed of light. Considering that Geo could basically survive a black hole like it was nothing, this means that it’s likely that he could do the same.

And unlike all the other Mega Men, Starforce managed to make sure that his world ended up peaceful.

So, at the end of the day, when the world is in danger of being destroyed or overrun by alien beings made up of Electro-Magnetic waves, there’s only one man to call:

Starforce Mega Man.

I gotta say: Doing all these callbacks to the end of Classic’s rundown from Mega Man vs. Astro Boy was kinda fun.

The battle itself.

Luis is lead on this battle and he’s backed by Zack and Kiid. Brandon on the music, Mega Mania. Jerky on Spriteart, and Chris Kokkinos on sound. No voice actors (thank goodness. I’m not in the mood, nor do I have the time to look up their twitter accounts).

So, for those who saw the preview, we know that the main reason they fight is because they all just show up in the same location. Eh, it could be worse. There are some fights that could have been improved without a story to them.

So, as the preview showed, Classic, Volnutt, and X all kinda… Get to the ground while Geo and Hub kinda just… duke it out up top.

Unfortunately for Classic, X is canonically his superior in every way. This puts him at a disadvantage against the Maverick Hunter. However, Rock has a trick up his sleeve.

His Super Adaptor armor.

But, it’s not like X is a stranger to having a super form as well, and he breaks out his own armor.

And the Black Hole Bomb is launched, but it’s not like X is a stranger to this, as he breaks out rather menacingly.

(Anyone here watching DIU?- I’m excited to see the Highway Star arc dubbed)

So, spoiler alert: Volnutt is the first to fall. Without any fancy tech, or FTL capabilities, he’s not escaping the Black Hole Bomb.

But, as stated before, since X is Rock’s superior in every way, Rock goes down next.

(Don’t worry, X gets better).

And after X pulls himself back together, he opts to blast his opponent with the Mother Elf attack.

But…

Star Force is made up of EM waves, which means he can physically fight back.

It also means he can hack X and basically knock him down.

So the final battle is between Starforce Mega Man, and MegaMan.EXE.

Which means the finishing blow comes in

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

And the winner is MegaMan.EXE!

Verdict + Explanation.

So, as it turns out, it really boils down to Starforce and .EXE.

X’s Mother Elf attack wasn’t much to do either, as both Starforce and .EXE were experienced with that kind of attack.

But you might be thinking “Starforce held back in his fight with EXE so to not cause a paradox! Shouldn’t that mean that Starforce is stronger?” And to answer that… No.

Both combatants were holding back in their fight.

And at best, Starforce’s speed is 3 million times that of the speed of light. But remember that time when EXE traveled the entire Cyberworld to find something that could help him save Bass.EXE?- Since the Cyberworld is an actual cybernetic universe and not just a hard drive or a file on a computer, it means that it’s comparable to our own. Since MegaMan.EXE couldn’t have been gone too long, on account that Bass.EXE didn’t have a lot of time to survive an attack, this means that MegaMan.EXE’s best speed would have to be…

……… Remember when Darkseid, a literal GOD, had the best speed feat recorded?

Also, unlike X, who is explicitly stated to be better than Mega Man Classic, Starforce isn’t stated to be better than EXE despite coming after him in canon material. And his healing and defensive powers gave him a leg up.

And if you’re thinking “Wait! Wouldn’t EXE’s speed feat be an outlier without anything to back it up?”- There’s a popup for that too.

And with moves like Uninstall and Interrupt, EXE could basically just steal or stop any of Starforce’s attacks. He could do it to all the other Mega Men’s weapons with it too……… Except for Volnutt, interestingly enough (Hey, gotta throw him a bone after Legends 3 was cancelled).

In the end, all the Super Fighting Robots had plenty of firepower. But if you want a Mega Man to rule them all, there’s only one man to call:

MegaMan.EXE

Overall impression

Too many zeros. Like, I can’t really concentrate on this fight with that many zeros on one little programing droid!

I mean… Yay?- Now I have an excuse to make it so that Ultron is a non-problem in the story, but still? That’s a lot of zeros on EXE.

I like the fight, and the jokes are pretty good, but I can’t get over those zeros.

Like… the music is great, the animation is solid, and the research is sound, but still.

Those zeros…

8.5/10. Ah, goddammit. More zeros.

Next time…

Someone’s husband is dead.

So, a ballerina turned (literal) cold-blooded assassin against a super-spy trained by who knows how many people? I was honestly expecting Nat to fight Huntress or Black Canary. And for Widow to fight… Literally anyone else with a sniper. I would have honestly had taken Ruby Rose vs Widowmaker.

Whatever. Join us next time as we cover…

Redhead Spider-Lady vs. Purple Spider-Lady.

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

Spider-Lady vs. Lady-Spider.

So many zeros… *insert whimpering noises here*

#Death Battle #Deathbattle #review

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thedappleddragon · 3 years

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haha here we go again

there's a lot of dumb ranting and 3 days worth of logs and a dream in here so im gonna spare evryone’s dashboard and just put it all under the cut.

tw bad memories, talk of unhealthy relations with food, and dreams about dead animals

I realized I kind of entirely forgot to write about what I did yesterday? I kind of did a lot. I know my mom wanted to work on getting tile laid out in front of her bathroom, so we worked together to scrub the concrete and wipe up all the dirt and dust and whatever was under the carpet and remove some of the nails in the floor and bring up a spiky metal strip between the bathroom door and where the carpet was. The other main thing I remember is deciding to continue work on my dress, sewing up the outer bodice, checking that the bodice and lining would fit together, deciding I’d rather have no different colored front panel, and working on the circle skirt. At first I tried cutting the fabric on my bed, but it wasn’t big enough and too lumpy. I contemplated asking my friends if I could borrow their dining table, but I ended up clearing off my own. After I traced and was in the middle of pinning, I accidentally knocked over a glass bowl that I had set on the chair. My mom heard it from the other room and had me come to her room to tell her what it was. She got angry at me, which I thought was fuckin stupid if it was an accident, but after some reflection while cleaning up the glass pieces, I kind of understood why. Mostly I got a little upset about 2 ceramic pieces I made during school breaking a little from the drop. One was a mushroom house from middle school that always makes me remember feeling like an asshole during peer review when I told my person to smooth their project more because I didn’t know “no improvement needed” was an option until I got back to my desk and saw my person saying it was good in all categories because everyone thought my project was great for some reason. The other was a bunch of flowers on a circle. It was the last project we did before quarantine hit, I think. That one is in less tough shape, just a couple flowers knocked off and a chip on one of them. They can both be glued back together, I guess. Then my mom called me back into her room to listen to her talk about wanting to eat huge amounts of food, because she’s clinically depressed with BPD and PTSD and DID and several other acronyms and her favorite coping mechanism is food, but her doctor put her on a diet so she can get her knees replaced, but recently she’s been getting into a zone where she talks about wanting to eat entire cakes and pizzas and buckets of kfc and a gallon of queso or whatever the fuck and she goes “doesn’t that sound GOOD?” And I have to laugh along and say “haha no that sounds bad actually” and get her a piece of ham or something. And every time she goes on her spiel the only thing I can think of is the greedy from the raggedy Ann and Andy musical. It’s just this horrible undulating orange blob that eats everything in sight and seeing it for the first time just made me think of mom and it made me very uncomfortable, with all the orange goo and hurling noises. Also reminds me of this horrible video game boss fight where it’s the apocalypse and a fat lady on a scooter took over the buffet and eats so much during her boss fight, during the defeat cutscene she projectile vomits everywhere and dies. My brother Greg showed me that thinking it was funny. I hated it, and I still do. He showed me a lot of things he thought were funny as a shitty little kid, and I remember several of them being very upsetting. It’s ok. I don’t want to dwell on it. But after cleaning the glass and talking to mom I brought my fabric to my room and called it a night. Oh wait my dad also helped me with some paperwork my coworker handed me so I could get on the payroll.

Today I woke up differently than I have in a long time. I set an alarm for 10 am so I could be at work by 11, but I woke up at 9 from a heavy sleep with dreams about hanging out with my friend in my room, worrying about my dirty house. I wanted to sleep longer, so I got up at 10 to have breakfast and get ready. I spent my shift changing the price tags all around the store, making everything more expensive. I’m gonna work again on Tuesday where I’ll learn how to use the register. I hope I don’t fuk it up, but I have a couple days to relax until then. Maybe I’ll work on my dress. My friends all want to go to prom together, so my new deadline will be March 2nd or a little before. I still need to buy a ticket, but I don’t have access to the link to buy one :( bleh I’m too tired right now to worry about this shit. I only worked 4 hours again today, but after I got home I felt like I could have worked longer if they gave me something else to do. The only price tags left to change were a bunch of grills and stuff I don’t know about but I don’t know if they had any other work for my to do. But I’m glad I went home tho because I was hungry and my feet hurt from standing lol. I did laundry and made myself dinner and washed my hair and drew a little bit and made the table and tbh the pacing of today has been so weird I don’t remember everything. It’s only 1am but I think I’m just gonna go to bed. my friends started talking about going to prom, and I really want to join them, but I can't figure out where/how to buy a ticket. my brain started being really mean to me, syaing that I was being annoying and pushy and that they didnt want me at prom for some reason, so I low-key almost made myself cry until my friend offered to let me be their platonic date since their partner couldn't go.

last night I had a dream about a hard video game where when you played it, the black shadow enemies would fight you in real life, and one of them left imprints on my arm in the shape of lego bricks. they could only attack you so long as you played the game, and they tried to capture people and you were supposed to save them. I decided it was my time to play, and I walked into my garage that had turned into a cave with bat-people fused into the wall. I paid them no mind as I rescued a girl who was my irl brother, grabbing her hand and pulling her into another versoin of my garage which was uncorrupted and normal looking. she thanked me, and I said it was no problem. then I tricked her, telling her not to trust so easily, as I became one of the shadow enemies and engulfed her in a black sack, trapping her and leaving the room. I came back a couple minutes later, letting him free (now my brain told me he was my brother) telling him I just wanted to know if I was capable of tricking him, and didnt actually want to kill him or whatever. another big chunk of my dream was taken up by me, my sister, and my dad visiting a run down petting zoo/gamestop. the petting zoo barn was very dark with low ceilings with lots of rabbits and pigs and hay. one of us accidentally killed either a pig or a tiger right next to the exit door, and I had to slink around the gamester trying to distract the owner and keep him from going in the barn and escaping at the same time. I dont remember how it ended, other than me waking up with a sore throat from breathing so deeply through my nose. I had slept on my stomach wit my pillow in my face so I could hardly breathe, and even after I woke up I felt like I wasnt getting enough air. I HATE that feeling, I always felt like I was suffocating in middle school for some reason. I thinkk somethings wrong with my airway but im not gonna do anything about it. im gonna continue to spend 80% of my day laying down so my resting heart rate and breathing speed is slower than an goddamn sloth. whatever.

right now as im laying in bed typing this I feel utterly unpoductive but I KNOW I did SOME shit today. but yeah mostly I relaxed. I worked on my dress, removing and replacing the blue front panel. I lost my exacto knife somewhere so I went to dollar tree to get a knockoff, along with snacks for mom and my sister. the blades aren't as sharp as exacto, but I still know where the name brands blades are so maybe Ill try and see if they're compatible. when I open the package everything was oily and gross, so I washed everything off with soap and water before I used them to cut the threads of the panel seams. I could have used my seam ripper but I wanted to get a replacement craft knife anyway. its kinda neat that it came with 6 different shaped blades for different crafts :) but uhh I also cut out the other half of the circle skirt of the dress, and I have a bunch of extra fabric left over. probably enough to make a whole other bodess if I wanted too. I used my sewing machine to attach the new front panel, and I was hoping to get more sewing done tonight, but when I asked my sister if it was ok for me to use my sewing machine (it right next to the wall between our rooms so she can hear it from there) she said she was going to bed soon so I just attatched the front panel and called it a night. so that kinda sucked. I still have another day tomorrow before I have to work again, and I can still work on my dress on Tuesday after work. idk why my brain thinks that one 4 hour shift is gonna take up my entire day lmao. I just have to get the whole thing done by may 2nd. GOD that reminds me, im gonna be so busy next month. I have six events back to back happening like every other day, plus work. oof. I'll have to let my boss know, but idk If that's gonna make him mad. I've already got pretty comfortable with the lady in charge of the garden center who’s taken lead position while the manager is on vacation, but I dont think I;ll every understand my boss. he’s a sarcastic busy old man and NOT AT ALL approachable. whatever. really the only other tings I did today were drink a shit ton of water play harvest moon, spend too much time on tiktok, and sraw a couple dum things for my friends’ princess au. I fucking HATE the drawing I did for Anna, so I designed her a secondary outfit more inspired by sky pirate bohemian vibes, since she rules over the floating islands. idk if I'll replace her old outfit with the new one in the lineup or just re-draw her old one with better shapes and composition and match the style better or what. I just need it changed eventually becasuse it looks like ass. tbh now that ve taken a little bit of time away from the princess au, there are a couple designs im not 100% satisfied with. but I know that if I go back and make them more detailed or whatever the’ll be more of a hassle to draw and aslkdfhalksdf I dont know anymore. I'm still tied up about color pallets and trying to give everyone a distinct color, and im a little upset it doesn't quite work, and FUCK dude the edgy one’s lore and character are weird and I kind of want to revise it to make it a little nicer but its not my character and I need to stop shoving my dirty little mitts into everyone’s ocs and AHAGHRGHGARGHHG idk man. her power is necromancy and she has a skeleton army, which I think I kinda cool, but I also think it would be neat if her powers extended beyond just that to communing with the dead, helping them find rest, and THEN maybe it can branch into helping fallen soldiers fight again to help them with unfinished buisness. and then if she goes feral and starts abusing her powers, she ignores all the communication and concent with the dead and instead magically rips them from thr ground to do her bidding and they’re uncontrollable and violent and aimless, just like her mind slipping from the magical blight infecting her. idk man we’re till working on a lot of lore. her concept could be SO COOL with just that little bit of extra thought, but so far it’s just MY POWER IS DEATH IM SO EDGY. ugh I know its fuckin rude to bash your friends oc ideas and I might be too overbearing and controlling of this au but dammit im tired and im mean sometimes and my ego is through the goddamn roof and im so sexy and im always right and my meat is huge. ah shit I rpomised my friend I would help her with character design for the dead king but I was busy when she firat asked me and now im not busy but im not doing it ugh. im just frustrated right now because I spent wayyyy to fuckin long just laying in bed watching tikotks and youtube and playing harvest moon an doing jack shit all day. but hey at least I attempted to get a new social security card again today. and them promptly gave up when they said my adress was invalid. again. I feel like im in an uncomfortable medium between having no plans and worrying about the future and having too many plans all the time oh my god. ive been so focused on getting a job and then having a job and making this dress I completely forgot about college shit. thankfully there's no hard deadlines coming up that I haven't already finished. whatever I dont really want to worry about all this hit right now, im just gonna take it one day at a time. (haha it feels like my angel oc just stepped in. how nice of him :) )

#thanks for coming to my ted talk #April 2021 daily #2021 daily

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vsionvry · 3 years

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Shane Griffin on the Future of Design, Autonomy, & Breaking All the Rules

Born in Dublin, Ireland, Shane Griffin is a digital artist trailblazing throughout a multitude of mediums. Whether it’s in design, film, sculpture, or animation, he continues to create captivating and unique realms for not only our favorite brands but also for himself. I had the opportunity to speak with Shane about the future of design, autonomy, and breaking all the rules.

AP: Hi Shane!

SG: Hey ash!

AP: What’s up, how are you?

SG: Good, how are you?

AP: I’m doing good, thanks for hopping on this call with me, I appreciate you.

SG: Absolutely, no problem! Great to be connected.

AP: Yeah! I’m really looking forward to getting to know more about you. I’ve been following your work for a while and I really enjoy it. I read in a previous interview that you grew up in Dublin, Ireland. How was that experience and what influenced you to pursue more of a creative career?

SG: Dublin is a beautiful city. It’s a small city. Back then there weren't many creative opportunities. Not that many jobs in art either. So that was a real toss-up with what I was going to do. In school, they didn’t really teach creative jobs. There wasn’t anything I could take in college that was creatively related really. I knew I wanted to do something in that field, but I honestly had no idea that the job I do now exists, so yeah it was a bit of an unsure time. There weren’t many people there that were shining a light on new media and things like that. Now it’s changed a bit.

AP: Yeah, we’ve moved in such a digital and technical direction since then and all of these new jobs we didn’t know could exist, exist now. How did you get introduced to animation and motion design?

SG: I actually applied to Architecture. I was very set on it actually. That’s all I was slightly interested in and when I was leaving [the equivalent to high school in America], they said I couldn't take technical drawing, the prerequisite to Architecture, because there was no teacher to teach it. So even though I did it for 3 years, I couldn’t take it for my finals which was ridiculous. So, I applied for Architecture and I actually missed it by less than 1%.

AP: Oh my god...

SG: Yeah! So I was pretty pissed off, I was like “Fuck College.”

[both laugh]

SG: So in a weird turn of events, my brother used to work at this DVD Magazine place with this graphic designer. And my brother’s like “Hey, Shane didn’t get into college and he kind of has this interest in design. Do you have any jobs for him?” and the guy said, “Well I can use an intern.” And at the time, he was at this small post-production company that did animation and 3D. So I went in and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I was 18 and I was trying to figure this shit out. There was another guy there, Steven, who taught me all the tricks of the trade and all the different types of ways to get around things - bits of 3D, bits of 2D. I was really just learning the ropes there, you know? And then I really just got a feel for it and I had a natural aptitude for computers and art, so it kind of just went hand and hand.

AP: It’s crazy how all that kinda came full circle and worked out in the end. Look at you now. [chuckles]

SG: Yeah!

AP: How has your creative journey been since you moved to New York?

SG: It’s been a real rollercoaster actually. New York’s a whole different beast for this type of stuff. I really didn’t think it would accelerate so quickly. I had an idea of where I wanted to go, but to be honest, even when I got here, which was probably like 7 years ago, there weren't a lot of 3D artists who were doing their own thing. They were all mostly in-house and at companies doing post-production stuff. There weren’t many designers exploring the world and doing things on their own terms, you know? So I sort of made my own lane. I don't mean that to sound in an egotistical way, it’s just the way it happened. The opportunities were coming in, I was getting a lot of work and meeting all these great people. Like-minded people. There wasn’t that kind of energetic, pulsing creative scene in Dublin, and in New York, it’s everywhere. There are niche scenes. And there are scenes for animators, scenes for illustrators, there are scenes for all these different people.

AP: It’s crazy you mention that because I wanted to ask you if you were able to find a design tribe in New York, you know, a design community to be a part of.

SG: Yeah! I was actually. And not by accident either. A couple of years ago, when I was in Dublin, I won the Young Gun Award from the Art Director’s Club and they asked me to come to the ceremony in New York. It was my first trip over here. I met a bunch of people that night, other winners and other people who have won in previous years. There were a lot of people who I looked up to and all of a sudden I was in that clique, which was pretty unusual. It all changed a bit, but at that time it was really cool. Everyone was doing something different and everyone was trying to scramble their way to the top. It was so funny ‘cause it was like this weird creative wall street thing.

AP: That’s so cool! Do you think that’s important or necessary? To have that design community...

SG: It’s cool because you get to talk shop with people, you know? But it’s also very competitive. Creatives come from different walks of life and some of them are great people and some of them aren’t. It’s just like anywhere though. You float in and out of these nebulas of people until you find the ones you’re comfortable with. The creative world is no different. There are so many walks of life and a bunch of weirdos and it’s great. I think it’s important, yeah. I didn’t have that before I came here and it was important to me when I got here, but now it’s weird ‘cause it’s not that important to me. I loved being involved in it, you know? I’ve made some great friends for life, but it doesn’t hold the importance it once did.

“You float in and out of these nebulas of people until you find the ones you’re comfortable with.”

AP: Congrats on launching Grif.Studio!

SG: Aw, thank you!

AP: You launched it in 2020...

SG: Yeah I did a soft launch. It wasn’t like a real thing. I was buying the domains, I was roping in people to do jobs with me. It kinda accidentally got out and I was just like “Okay!”

[both laugh]

AP: How has that experience been? How does freelance work differ from launching a studio?

SG: I guess it’s more autonomous. I have a unique situation where I have a production company that represents me, but I don't work there. Their name is Psyop and we got in touch at the beginning of last year and really hit it off. We do all of the bigger, longer-form projects together. And for the smaller form, more art-focused projects, I do them through my own studio. The guys [at Psyop] really support that. They want to empower me in my artistic endeavors, so it’s a great relationship. On top of that, it’s great to be a part of a huge clan.

AP: Right! A design tribe. [chuckles]

So you work with all of these big names -- Nike, Apple, Adidas -- who are some people or brands you’d like to work with in the future? And what type of projects are you interested in making?

SG: I’ve just had a dream come true actually! Back in 2011 while I was in London, Wiz Khalifa had just released Rolling Papers and it was a really good summer album that we used to just blare on the rooftop. And I just did this music video for him...

AP: Whoaa, dope! That’s amazing! Congrats!

SG: Yeah! I’m really happy. It was a really cool collaboration.

I literally finalized it just before our call and I’m really happy with it. It’s wild and it’s very internet-y. It’s still very much my look, but it’s given it a new avenue, so I’m really happy with that. I’ve always wanted to work with Wiz and I always thought he was a very funny dude. I love how laid back he is and we’re the same age too, so I’ve always thought “Ah, I could be friends with Wiz!”, so that was cool.

I would love to work with everyone. I’m really interested in taking on new projects and expanding what I do to different areas. It’s really just when the stars align. I’m just praying more aligns this year [laughs].

AP: Absolutely! And they will. What’s been your favorite project so far, do you have one?

SG: I hold so many of them dearly in a weird way, you know? The Kanye Red Octobers with Nike was amazing because there was so much hype behind it. He had just left Nike when they were supposed to come out and I was “Whoa this is gonna be huge!”. But then he left and I was like, “Noo, they’re never going to come out! I’ll never be able to show anyone this shit” But thankfully they did drop. It was a cool moment to be a part of pop culture history. I’ve always loved that.

I’ve got good memories from all the Nike stuff too. I did the Sneaker Ball sculpture for them in Madrid and had a blast making it. They ended up fabricating it for real, so that was great to see that take life and a whole new form. To have people interact with it was great. So those things have been really amazing. Some of my own projects have also been really rewarding. My Chromatic series has served me...

AP: That’s actually one of my favorite projects of yours!

SG: Oh, thank you! It’s weird, you know when you’re so deep into something you kind of lose track of what it is. You have to step away from it for a while. I did so many of them last year for clients that I had to take a step back from it. I jumped back into it with the Wiz Khalifa video, so it was a really nice stop and start that I had with it. It’s a really empowering thing for me to have, because no matter what medium I’m working with, I can always fuse the thinking and the conceptual nature of that project into it. So that to me has been a favorite. I always feel rewarded for it wherever it goes, whether it’s on iPhone screens, the Wiz video, or if I’m doing large scale installations with it. It always feels like it maintains the DNA of the original thought process I had with it, so that’s been really good.

AP: Yeah, that’s such a great series. The colors, fluidity. I was blown away when I was stalking all of your work.

SG: Oh thank you.

AP: Speaking of stalking, I pulled up old tweets. [laughs]

SG: [laughs] Oh shit.

AP: I saw one that made me laugh out loud. It was something along the lines of ‘Whoa. Client just asked to make the logo smaller.’

Both: [laughs]

AP: It reminded me of this meme I saw a few days ago about receiving feedback from clients. Sometimes brands, companies, or clients lack the context to design and the design process. What’s the craziest feedback you’ve received from a client?

SG: Oh my god. So I used to work at this company when I first got to New York that wanted to essentially rip off Instagram. Like, make a Chinese version of Instagram.

AP: [laughs]

SG: And that’s not something I do, you know what I mean? That was not a project I was interested in, nor was I really capable of doing, but I was like “Well, this is my job now.”

AP: Like rip off the layout or the actual platform?

SG: Everything. The platform was getting coded somewhere else, but it was an exact replica of Instagram. Initially, they wanted 10 photo filters but changed their mind to like 100. It was really hard to understand what the Chinese aesthetic was and to really get into the mindset of what they thought was cool and what wasn’t cool because of language barriers. So we sent this one filter and the feedback was “Looks like puke.”

Both: [laughs]

SG: Getting lost in translation with the feedback was absolutely hilarious. Of course, it was frustrating but it was so beyond the realm of comprehension, that you’re like ‘This is so ridiculous.’ But that was really fun. There have definitely been some other really mean ones, where you’re like “Geez, no need to say that.”

AP: Right! No perspective on the design process. It’s just them telling you to move something here, or there, or make this bigger, ‘this looks weird’.

SG: Yeah, there’s a lot of people that aren’t educated in the ramifications of some changes. But at the same time, that just comes with practice. Usually, no one says no to a good idea. You can always say “Here’s what I think you mean.”, and you present something that’s quite visually engaging and usually it’s a yes. For the most part, people just want their stuff to look cool.

AP: What’s your creative process like?

SG: I’m trying to refine it more nowadays. I’m trying to be more strategic with how I approach things. The concept is really the key to projects and now more than ever there are more tools to realize that. There are more avenues to take with it and more mediums to explore with those concepts. Ideation to production is also much faster. So initially, I like to spread the net pretty wide with the concept. When I’m thinking of it, I try 7, 8, 9, or 10 different things, and one of them will kind of hit the mark. Or none of them! I have a graveyard of 50 projects from old ideas that I’ll never touch again, you know? But sometimes one of those things will really resonate and you’re like, ‘There's something in this!’, and then you dig deeper and deeper until you unearth something. You cast the net really wide, go down a bunch of avenues, you explore things, you try things, and one always rises to the top. And then you take that and you run with it. You refine it. And then you kind of get snow blindness from it ‘cause you’re in it so deep. You’ve been doing the same thing and you don’t know if it’s cool anymore...

AP: Yeah, you don’t even see it anymore.

SG: Yeah, you just see fucking lines and colors. You don’t see anything. So then you take a step away from it and then you revisit it. Sometimes I temperature check with people and see what they think and I’ve noticed that I don’t really get an amazing reception from a lot of people initially on things that I try, so I’ve dialed back a little bit. I don't really show people stuff anymore, I just put it out. When they see it in the context of when they can’t comment or they can’t change it, everyone seems to like it. It’s very unusual.

Both: [laughs]

AP: There’s more room for feedback when the opportunity is given.

SG: Yeah so I’ve gone backward on that one. I keep everything pretty private until I’m ready to go with it.

AP: That’s an interesting way to go about it.

SG: Yeah, it’s actually kind of democratic for me. Like ‘Nah I’ll keep this for myself.’

AP: How do you get unstuck creatively?

SG: Oh I just have to take a few during the day. I try to get out. I try to step away from the computer as much as I can, for a refresher. If I’m going in all day I just start making mistakes. I’m beginning to read more and explore older artists. People whose artistic peek happened in the ‘60s or ‘70s. There was a lot of interest in color theory going on back then, so I’ve been catching up a lot on that. It’s always interesting to see people’s different perspectives and how people with analog tools have approached corporate work. So yeah, I get unstuck by just broadening my horizons a bit, in terms of influence. I think people may think I’m a bit ignorant ‘cause I don’t follow that many 3D artists online, but it’s not really what I like to consume. If you are only surrounded by people who do similar work as you, you’re all going to kind of melt into the same thing. So I like to keep things that influence me in a different spirit from what I’m in. I’ve always been interested in how other people communicate their ideas. If you communicate an idea via paintings, it’s different if you’re communicating via a novel. It’s really not about the concepts, but how people communicate the concepts. That’s what interests me. That always helps shake off the mental block.

AP: Speaking of all these different mediums, it seems as though people outside the creative world are sometimes trying to box creatives into one category. You're only looked at as a designer, or a painter, or even a director, but I feel as though creatives are so much more than just one thing. Our art, interests, and passions kinda transcend titles. We’re multi-dimensional. Are there any other mediums, besides design, that you enjoy or are interested in diving into?

SG: Yeah. Filmmaking for sure. I direct commercials and stuff, but I’ve had this idea for a while and I’ve been wanting to take a stab at it. I guess it’s called educational filmmaking? Just ‘cause there’s not much of it out there. If I’m interested in a topic and I want to learn more about it, it’s hard to find something that engages me visually. I was trying to understand Quantum Field Theory the other day. Like, what is it? I don’t get it. And I couldn’t read this book on it...

AP: It wasn’t making sense... Especially if you’re a visual learner.

SG: Yeah, exactly. People just learn in different ways. So I was looking at this guy on YouTube who's actually quite good at it. He demonstrates it in a great visual way and at the end of it I was like, “Whoa, there’s no way I could’ve figured this out by reading it.” So I thought it could be cool to do this in a very film-like way. I’m interested in the educational part of science. I really liked Cosmos. I don’t know if you’ve watched it. It’s a series with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

AP: Yeah! I’ve seen some episodes. I love Neil deGrasse Tyson.

SG: Visually it’s very engaging. It looks cool. It makes you feel like you’re flying to different worlds. It’s pretty successful, from an educational standpoint. So I really like the idea of that, but just thinking of it more artistically. That’s in my pipeline somewhere. I’ll have to get that idea out at some point.

AP: Let’s talk about credit! And we’ll use creatives and the music industry as the example. Sometimes music artists get all of the credit or most of it for let’s say -- the album art or creative behind their album rollout. What’s your perspective on that?

SG: I’m glad you touched on that. It can be hard sometimes, you know? It’s very unusual because some people get credit, and some people don't. I kind of forced my own credit on the Wiz video cause no one else worked on it. I’m taking it. I feel bad for a lot of people who do amazing work and can’t talk about it, or some people may steamroll past them. I think it happens in music as well. A lot of producers have this issue. A producer will make a beat, but because there’s another producer’s tag on it, there’s no recognition. And so I see it happen there and I see it happen in design. It’s a lot of people just trying to justify their position. You might have somebody, who by commissioning the job, feels like they own the creative, and in a certain way, they do. But credits are there to be honored and shared.

A company I used to work for deleted me off the credits when I left...

AP: That’s crazy...

SG: It’s very unusual, I don't understand it. It’s not how I roll and I really have no time for people who want to do that.

AP: Yeah, that’s so crazy. It’s almost one of the reasons why the perception is that artists, music artists being the example in this conversation, do things by themselves. But in actuality, they have teams and they commission people or have people on their team pitching these ideas to make their shit look cool. It’s not necessarily just them, but people around them.

SG: No you’re right, especially with how things are now. I don’t know if you saw that Young Thug video, where he doesn’t show up for the video...

AP: I’m not sure?

SG: It’s amazing, the director basically says “Here’s a video I made for Young Thug, where he doesn’t even show up to the shoot, and he had one phone call with me and he demanded the video be directed by Young Thug, even though he didn’t show up for the video.”

AP: That’s fucking crazy.

SG: Madness. The director made such a good video, it’s hilarious. But I see that happen to a lot of different artists. I’ve had my own issues with companies I’ve worked for, but I haven’t had that happen with music artists. I do see it happening by music artists all the time though. I think we’re in a world where everyone wants their roses and everyone wants autonomy, but then everyone also wants to be connected to these celebrities. It’s tough to say no to things. If you don’t take the opportunity, someone else will. So I definitely feel for a lot of creatives who are going through that, but at the same time, I see it happening on the other side of the ladder. Younger people taking credit for things that they didn’t really have an intricate part of. So I think it’s really more so about the human element of it than anything else. Insecurities mixed in with savageness. I don’t know, I don’t really subscribe to it, but I think if you’re a good person and have a good collaboration, there’s no reason you shouldn’t give people credit.

AP: Exactly! I agree. I think social media really elevates all of this as well. Everyone wants to be a brand, no one really wants to put in the work, doing things just to do it — without purpose. I don’t know, it’s weird. [laughs]

SG: It’s weird. The mental gymnastics people do to try to justify that to themselves. It really all just comes with experience. If you’ve gone viral a bunch of times and there have been things in question, you begin to learn that lesson rather quickly. It’s always best to be a good person when it all comes down to it.

AP: We’re living through history right now, with this pandemic and all of these super intense events. How has this experience affected you creatively?

SG: Covid has been interesting. To see the shift in everything. To be honest, I was kind of worried when it happened because I had three projects at the same time, and they all got canceled immediately. They were some cool projects too. But after digesting what was going on, it didn’t affect me too much. I feel pretty guilty because people's lives have been ruined from it and it's horrific to watch. Friends have been displaced forever because of it, you know? A lot of people have obviously passed from it. The side that’s unforgettable in a way is, I feel like I’ve avoided most of it. And I feel guilty, to be honest. I’ve just been really thankful that I’ve been able to navigate the change in landscape and what is presented. So from a creative level, it’s been fine. It’s been somewhat inspiring in a way because there’s been stuff to talk about within art, and with everything going on in the year, in America in general. A Lot of people are having discussions about many things. I’m not the type of person who’s particularly worrisome but it has definitely tested me several times. A lot. Work and real life have always kind of blended together. So if I can give you a two-sentence answer for it -- Yes, it has displaced a lot of things that I was familiar with, but change is good. I always welcome change.

AP: Even though it’s been very negative for the most part, the positive side of it is we’ve all had to adjust and learn new things -- about ourselves...

SG: Yeah, definitely. It’s forced a lot of decisions and a lot of things I probably wouldn’t have done if I wasn’t confronted with it. So yeah, I hope there’s a silver lining. I really do.

AP: Yeah. Same.

I saw that you had an installation scheduled in 2020. Between.

SG: Yeah, I did. [laughs]

Yeah, the day everything fell apart. [same day we went into lock down]

AP: [laughs] Aw, no way! Is this something that will potentially still happen?

SG: I doubt it.

To be honest, I looked back at that project and I didn’t know if I really liked it. I went to see it recently. We put it back up and I went to photograph it. And I don’t know if I liked it as much.

AP: Really?!

SG: Yeah, so I think if I revisit it, I might do something wackier. You know things change, ideas change, your perception of your own work changes, everything is in a constant state of evolution, and being creative is never finished in that regard. I still talk to the gallery and we’ll probably do something when it’s safe and when things are back to normal. I don't want to take away from anything else that’s going on. I definitely will do something though. I’ve got a couple of more things planned for that world, which I would love to share with you, but just shouldn’t. [laughs]

AP: [laughs] Nah, let’s keep it a surprise, it’s cool. Artists are never satisfied with their work, so I understand. But I thought it was a cool series [laughs]

SG: I appreciate that. That’s good to hear, cause you know when you’re so deep into something, you can’t see it anymore.

AP: Definitely.

AP: As we move into this hyper digital-focused space as a society, I think it’s super important we learn some sort of digital or technical skill set. What do you think the future of animation and/or motion design is? Given the takeover of social media, movies, entertainment, and all that stuff.

SG: I think it’s weird for people who are learning right now. A friend of mine who’s a professor asked one of his students “Where do you want to work? What sort of work do you want to do?” And one of the girls was like “I want to be Insta-famous.”

AP: Interesting [laughs]

SG: I had this knee jerk reaction, “What the fuckkkk??”

AP: [laughs]

SG: But when I thought about it more, I understood that there is a potential if you’re an amazing animator with a unique point of view. Just as there is potential if you're unique and have a unique point of view in anything. There is a way you can sustain yourself off of something like Instagram if you have the platform and have tons of followers. But I guess what I thought she was forgetting is that there are maybe 40 graduates that year and maybe 40 graduates every year. She’s got competition. So trying to skip the phase of putting your teeth into design, or really learning all of the tools and skillset, is a dangerous thing. At some point, you could be made redundant. And that kind of segues into the future thing. There are so many applications for AI now -- I don’t know if you’ve seen DALL·E from OpenAI, but they’ve created a new text-to-image generator, where you basically type whatever it is you want to see and it makes it.

AP: Whoa...

SG: A porcupine in a leather jacket walking a turtle, and it makes it.

AP: That’s crazy...

SG: Crazy. So when AI gets smarter and tools get easier, some people will be made redundant. In the creative industry, everyone thinks they’re safe, but that’s not the case. It’s obviously a dangerous precedent to set. Something that just learns and mimics humans. But at the end of the day, it’s coming whether you like it or not. Regardless of what you think and how you feel about it, it’s coming. People have to learn how to adapt. It’s extremely tough, but it’s more important than ever now. The ability to segue if you need to based on unforeseen circumstances. For instance, Covid this year. It was very hard for me to direct. I only got to do one shoot in 2020. And that’s down from maybe 5 or 6 shoots a year. If I didn’t have the skillset to pivot, I’d be in a really dangerous place financially. Also, my career would feel very stagnant, ‘cause I’d only be putting out one job a year. So skills are important. Always keep learning.

AP: So important. We should always be trying to evolve. What advice would you give to someone who might want to start designing?

SG: I always advise people to learn as much as possible. Try different things, break the rules, try to break your computer, try to break the programs. Just try to learn as much as you can and try to do as much as you can. And it doesn’t even matter if it’s perfect or not, because it’ll be 10 years before you even break through. It’ll be 10 years before you make it big. No one blows up overnight. Some people might get a shit ton of Instagram followers overnight, but that’s not really blowing up. It takes 5 years of craft to even get in front of the door and 10 years to even blow up. So it’s a waiting game. People are more impatient now than ever, so it’s a tough pill to swallow. In the design world, it’s almost the reverse of musical artists. Musical artists may hit it hot straight out the gate. They may have stuff that’s relevant, the subject matter, the new sounds, and they don’t give a fuck and that’s what really creates this attitude and interest with people because they’re so fresh and so new. Whereas in design and art, if you want to create a masterpiece by yourself, you have to learn from the masters. You have to really put your teeth into it. It’s a waiting game and it’s a patience game. But it’s a rewarding game if you do it right you know.

”..break the rules, try to break your computer, try to break the programs. Just try to learn as much as you can and try to do as much as you can.”

AP: Okay last question. I’ve asked you a million already.

Do you remember your first-ever design? Either static or motion.

What was it?

SG: Awe, yeah. [chuckles]

I used to photoshop random bands’ images together. And I used to upload them onto their fan websites. That’s so corny, but that was a real thing that happened.

AP: [laughs]

SG: But it wasn’t pictures of them, it was always abstract shit. Shit didn’t exist back then. Instagram and all of that. Any sort of media we consume now didn’t exist back then. So I was trying to play around with the tools I had, which was photoshop, and that’s what I was doing. I was making wallpapers for bands, not commissioned, I didn’t know them [laughs]. I would just go to their fan websites and be like ‘Here’s a cool thing I made!’, and they’d upload it onto their wallpaper section and I would be like ‘Coooool!’

AP: Were they good? [laughs]

SG: Some of them were soo bad. [chuckles] Some of them were good though.

It was soo long ago. I never thought I would be doing kind of the same thing still — that many years later. Obviously, it’s been taken to a whole new avenue, but not really, you know?

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spam-monster · 7 years

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Interesting Things from the Steven Universe Art and Origins book:

- The Gems were originally going to be straight up magical girls that transformed and had separate civilian identities.

- Another early concept is that they were created by a “mother” to protect the humans, but “mother” decided to destroy humanity so the girls formed “the giant woman” to defeat “mother” and save humanity.

- an early pre-pilot episode idea involved “Baby the badass biker-guy who wants to be a magical girl”

- other pre-pilot episode ideas had Steven’s crush on “Priyanka” (most likely early Connie), Pearl having a crush on the Pizza Guy, and Sadie possessed by a necklace that turns her into a popular singer and Lars potentially saving her.

- Steven is the opposite of a man-child, he’s a child-man!

- Rebecca says “Dramatic things don’t only happen to cool, serious people. And life doesn’t stop being ridiculous when a tragedy occurs.”

- Some old mythos from the pilot pitch - crystal gems were from another universe, Rose “vanished like a phoenix when Steven inherited her gem”, Rose would visit Steven’s dreams and give him advice and when he woke up roses would be growing around his body “which he finds very embarassing”

- the design of the human characters evolved from “food-centric” brainstorming. (i’m going to guess that being familiar with Akira Toriyama’s work might have helped with that)

- Rebecca in the pitch described the star symbol for the show as “They can look poppy and fun, but also ancient and magical.” and “It’s positive! It’s beautiful! It’s patriotic! It’s America!”

- Their goal was “doing Disney, seventies anime, and Hannah Barbera - all in the same art style”

- The crew enjoys using cartoons to talk about real world concepts because “People let their guard down when they watch cartoons.”

- The early Homeworld Gem concepts for “Cheeseburger Backpack” are extravagant and outlandish in a really gorgeous way, like a bunch of runway fashion models, They also played with the idea of having some of them wear faceplate helmets/masks like the Gem Temple statue has.

- Bismuth notes: “flirty with Pearl like construction worker”, thinks Pearl is hilarious/awesome “This high-class trophy wife who fights and kills people!”, “Huge respect for Garnet as an inter-class fusion - Sapphire for giving up privilege, Ruby for hitting that”

- The writers play a game where someone draws a scenario, and the picture gets passed to three different people who each write part of a story based on it. They’ve used a few of these for episode ideas.

- “Island Adventure” came from an episode idea that just read “Lars and Sadie make out - even though they’re not together.” It’s described as “Clearly, this was something we all wanted to happen.”

- “Onion Friend” also started out as one of these, the original idea involved “Grandma Shallot”

- “Future Boy Zoltron” came from two different writing games, one with Garnet using her future vision to do fortune telling (and being too blunt about it), and one with Steven reuniting Mr. Smiley with his old comedy partner. The notes for the latter include “also they were clearly lovers”

- The story game that eventually became “We Need to Talk” had Greg walk in on Steven and Connie kissing in the beginning and trying to give them the other “talk”, and he learned about fusion when he saw Pearl and Amethyst practicing it.

- There was also an as-of-now unused idea set soon after Garnet joining the Crystal Gems about Rose asking her to fuse and Garnet being uncomfortable with it and Peal being annoyed that Garnet is uncomfortable with it

- There was an idea the writers kicked around for a while about a floating continent the Gems had elevated years ago called “Airstralia”

- It’s important that Steven is “as excited about everyday human things as he is about magic Gem things”

- About “Mindful Education”: “How can we make a story about meditation exciting? How can we get kids invested in a way that will make them want to see meditation work for the characters?”

- There are also “Design a Gem/Design Gem Technology” games where one person draws a character or object and another has to come up with the description. One of these is a potential design for a healed Earth Beetle, a tiny gem about the size of Steven’s head. Some of the “tech” is a gem embedded in a slice of pizza, a device that projects thoughts that Steven uses to spy on Lars’ dreams (complete with doodle of him dreaming about Sadie and Steven saying”I knew it!”), and a visor that shows you someone’s power level but also how sad they’re feeling - “with this information you can fight them physically and emotionally”

- The writers think ““I knew it!” is always better than “I didn’t see that coming””, so they like dropping lots of hints into the show

- With Ruby and Sapphire, Rebecca wanted to make a couple that looked very different from each other but were also obviously a perfect match for each other.

- Early versions of Peal and Garnet’s fusion were a lot more stoic-looking

- Steven and Connie’s relationship is described as “the pure love of children” and “that eternal love that could withstand anything”

- About Peridot: shows that you can be hyperactive and weird but still loved, also showing that you can be friends with people who were raised differently from you, also “a straight-up corny alien”

- the ideas that Gems could pull things out of their gems and shapeshift came from old Tex Avery-type cartoons: “ What if we take the way that a classic cartoon character acted and turned it into a superpower?”. Also “One of our goals was to have these characters who were powerful heroes, but also have them be funny and weird too.”

- from a Storyboard Test for aspiring artists: the crystal gems and Steven = “like three Zeldas and a Mario”

- Estelle gave Rebecca advice on writing “Stronger Than You” and “Here Comes a Thought”

- “Comet” was an adaption of a song from a band Nick DeMayo (the animtion director) was in in the 80s

- “We wanted this beautiful perfection of everything that had to do with Homeworld and Gem society, but it had to be kind of eerie. One of the principal idea is that perfection is not something to strive for - that it’s not necessarily good, that imperfection should be celebrated.”

- They want the show to be “subversive in a positive way”

#steven universe #steven universe theory

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