Just some wild dmc scenario that struck-eth:
Vergil got behind the wheel of a car, with Nero occupying the passenger seat. Maybe they even steal the car—not so unlikely if the area is in utter chaos and demons are throwing a party everywhere. Vergil certainly didn't have many qualms about committing theft, while Nero reluctantly agreed to it. It was only when Vergil started the abandoned vehicle did a realisation strike Nero.
“Wait, you know how to drive, right?”
“Yes, I've driven a car before. I doubt they’ve changed too drastically over the years.” Vergil gripped the gear shifter and smacked it into reverse.
“Wait, wait, what's that supposed to mean? When's the last time you drove a car?”
Vergil hit the gas, backing up until they collided with a demon approaching the car from behind, the impact marked by a loud thud. The car shook as it went over its body. “Hmmmm, must be about twenty-six years, give or take.”
“And you didn't think I should be the one behind the wheel? That driver's license is waaay past its expiry.”
Vergil cracked a small smile as if he'd been told a great joke. “That assumes I had one to start with.” He harshly shifted the gears again and stomped on the gas, sending the car screeching forward. “I don't think I was old enough to obtain one even if such an option interested me.”
Vergil took a sharp turn, drifting into an alleyway and forcing the side of the car’s boot to smack into more demons. Meanwhile, Nero clung on for dear life to his seat and the dashboard to avoid bouncing his head off the side. With each passing moment, he began to grasp the gravity of his grave mistake.
Nero learned the hard way that there, in fact, did exist an even bigger menace on the road than Nico. Vergil drove like an absolute lunatic when given the chance: taking corners at the last possible second, playing bloody ping pong with every demon he could possibly hit, and drove at the highest speed the situation allowed him to get away with. To say there were many narrow misses during the wild ride would be an understatement.
Also Vergil, probably:
153 notes
·
View notes
Crisp those Lines!
Or: a small collection of suggestions for a crispy, neat lineart.
SO MANY OF YOU ASKED FOR THIS (it feels absurd to say, yes), so here you go.
A premise: there's no right or wrong way of inking, and some of the following tips entirely depend on the type of inking I do. Which is neat and clean, with no blacks, and moreover: digitally. More under the cut because it's gonna be long and full of explanatory pictures. Here's an example:
SOFTWARES AND BRUSHES:
Let's address the elephant in the room: Photoshop SUCKS for inking and linework. The stabilisation of the brush there is SHIT. Good for colouring and painting and doing photobashing, but for Lineart you want it to be precise. Do yourself a favour and don't use Photoshop.
I generally use Clip Studio Paint, but i have to say that the best program for it that I've tried keeps being Paint Tool SAI 2. It has few functions, it's true, and I use CSP because it has more instruments. But if you don't want to pay much, SAI is incredible as for brush rendition and stabilisation.
As for the brush: you don't need a fancy brush, anything in your software will go. What I use and what works best tho must have:
Tapered start and end.
High stabilisation (I go from 60 upward, lower it down for trees and grass or anything more natural that needs to be less neat and flowy)
Low tapering.
It must be set so that pressure controls only the dimension. The more you push on your pen, the bigger the line gets. No colour or opaciy variation!
On Clip Studio Paint, I use the G-Pen in the program. It's good as it is, but I think I did some variations as per here:
FILE DIMENSIONS:Better work larger and then resize down. Sizing files up digitally is possible, but it leads to unfocused images.
I generally work on files at 600dpi (300 is fine too, but don't go any lower. Particularly if that's something you want to print later on, any printing wants a minimum of 300dpi). in roughly an A3 format (bigger dimension is 43cm). Most pictures I upload here are 6000x5000 pixel.
A bigger file will give you more possibilities with brush sizes, and it'll be easier. Remember: digitally, sizing down is ok, sizing up is not something you should do.
SKETCH:
This is the suggestion I should follow but never do.
Having a clean, polished sketch simplifies your life A LOT. This is because if you don't have to worry about drawing details and fixing the anatomy of your drawing during the lineart, and doing it so GOOD because it's the lineart... You'll go that much slower and your life will be more complicated (it's not impossible, my sketches usually are very rough. I am ok with it, the most I do drawing wise is during the lineart... But I'm lazy, don't do like me. A good sketch will help you out.)
Compare the two sketches below:
Another note about your sketch layer: you know those memes that complains that the sketch looks good but when you hide it the lineart is shitty? That's easily solvable.
When you're inking, lower the opacity of the sketch layer down, A LOT. I generally go for a 30 or 40% opacity (depending on the colour of the sketch. the yellow sketch will go around 40% because it's less visible, the purple one lower).
When you're inking, you MUST see clearly the lineart you're doing. If the sketch isn't contrasting enough, you won't see clearly what you're doing... It's like trying to sketch with a dim light, not seeing the paper clearly. See the difference:
BEFORE YOU START:
You probably have read it everywhere, but it bears repeating: warm up your hand.
You're using muscles and for more than five minutes. The warmer they are, the firmer your hand is, the easier it gets controlling your lines. It also prevents you from damaging your wrist. Stretching is also great, and grippers are nice to have. Keep your hand fit!
As for warming up: I usually do some calligraphy exercises, practicing on flowy cursives. You want to practice varying the pressure of your lines in a single trait, hence why calligraphy is good. But generally, what you can do is...
PRESSURE VARIATION AND LONG LINES:
So. My main tip and trick is to vary the pressure of your lines. In the same line, and between different details. This will help making the lineart more dynamic and interesting.
A note: this works for semi-realistic styles. If your goal is obtaining a Cartoon Network style: they have generally little to no variation and it works. My suggestion would be to study the kind of style and effect you want to obtain, different styles will work best with different linearts. If you're aiming at hyperrealistic painting, there's no point in spending time over a lineart, for example, I inked the same lineart, but with a brush that doesn't vary it's dimensions with pressure, and not changing the dimension of the brush.
What makes my linearts look "flowy" and "neat" is the fact that I tend to draw less lines and longer, and pay attention when I stop, to start the line where I end it. This will give the impression of one continuous, single line, and make everything more fluid. See above in the french hood: on the right, I left the line rough on purpose, you can see where I stopped and started again. On the left, where I took care of it, you can't.
Generally speaking:
Thick, dark lines communicate that the object is close to the viewer (always keep the viewer in mind!) or in shadow. Lines should be thicker on the outside of your objects, to separate two planes, and in stuff closer to you.
Thin lines are delicate, they should be used in the background, for small details (see the hair, the lips, the small wrinkles around her eyes.)
As for line continuity: in both cases, the line of her face is one single line I drew. This can be obtained with a smooth result, particularly in curved lines, by getting the brush stabilisation on higher settings (80-100): sacrifice speed for accuracy.
MORE IS MORE, WHEN IT COMES TO LEVELS:
Particularly when there are two objects intersecating, or more characters interacting… Instead of inking all on the same level, I always do one level for each object, trace the WHOLE line as if there was nothing above, and then erase where it's not shown. This is a little thing, but pays off. Always in the drawing of above, the feather and the hem of the bodice were on separate layers, and then I erased the bodice under the feather. Take advantage of being inking digitally and not traditionally!
For many characters, here's an example of a vignette of a comic page before cleaning it up and erasing. Every single character and the weapons are on separate layers
For this it's very useful knowing your recurring mistakes. For example, I tend to draw heads bigger than they should. I know I do, so generally I keep the head on its own level, and the body on another, so it's easier to modify and size down just the head without getting crazy selecting only the lines you want with the lazo.
Again, you're inking digitally. It's not easier than traditionally necessarily, take full advantage of your instrument!
OTHER TIPS AND TRICKS:
High brush stabilisation sacrifices speed for accuracy. The line will lag a little from your cursor. Get used to watching the cursor and not the line, and trust that the line will follow.
GO SLOW.
Rotate and flip the canvas. Don't ask me why, but tracing long lines towards me is always easier than not the other way around.
Use the Free Transform, Warp, Distort etc etc and the Liquify to your heart's content if you notice the lineart has something wrong. The only cheating in art is using fucking AI generators (and AI pictures are not art, sorry not sorry)
References are your friends. Study how an artist you like does the lineart. Try and imitate them, and if you can and need to post them: tag them! (don't trace and sell it as your own)
Experiment with brushes, find one that you like for the effect you'd love. You do you, there's no right or wrong way of inking.
Remember to breathe when you trace those lines! (and to drink and do pauses and stretch, you don't want a tendonitis!)
Have fun. Lineart is not evil, lineart is your friend!
I hope this essay is exhaustive enough. I'm tagging ALL THE PEOPLE that requested it (and giving each of you a muffin).
@ndostairlyrium @narina-gnagno @salsedine @whimsyswastry @layalu @n7viper
If you have any questions, don't hesitate in asking!
124 notes
·
View notes
I feel like I don't harp on Aang's lack of leadership skills enough. I can already hear people cracking their knuckles to type out some long diatribe about how it's unfair to judge Aang's leadership because he's a kid. Let me stop you right there. As with his lack of respect for consent and his lack of preparation to deal with Ozai, his age is irrelevant because the framing of Aang would have us believe that he's right. The show wants us, the audience, to see Aang as clever and wise beyond his years. To say I can't be too hard on Aang because he's a child flies directly in the face of what the writers intended. So, step away from the keyboard and let me finish, alright?
Bet.
When I think of Aang as a leader, the episode that comes to mind is The Great Divide. Someone recently brought this up to me as an example of Aang being a Trickster type. I disagree. I think Aang is more of an Innocent than a Trickster, but I get how someone might see him as either *. It doesn't make him a great leader, in any case. In fact, it supports my theory that he's a bad leader. His actions in TGD show that he is far more interested in taking the easy way out than in any real sort of conflict resolution, which in a world looking for guidance post war is...not a great attitude to have. This is the most egregious example of his lack of conflict resolution skills, but it's not the only example of this. He also looks for the easy fix when Katara and Toph are fighting (although, this is interestingly actually framed as a misstep for him. A box of Mars bars to Bryke for that, I guess). It would be fine if this was acknowledged as a short-coming in him, but the way TGD ends, it's supposed to make Aang look clever. (P.S. there's NO way those groups didn't go right back to fighting, because that's not how conflict works).
Bryke could have left that alone and just have more examples of Aang being a good leader in the rest of the series or in the comics, but seeing as they don't seem to understand why Aang isn't the wonderful person they frame him to be, I get why there's not a whole lot of growth in him. Speaking of the comics, remember that time that Aang jumped on board with anti-miscegenation without considering the consequences? Remember how the only reason he changed his mind is because he would be personally affected by it? Yeah...
So, in the comics, Aang meets a group of wanna be Acolytes who studied Air Nomad customs and wanted to actually live them out. They shaved their heads and painted on some tattoos, and Aang was all about it...until he realized that it wasn't paint, they had actually gotten the tattoos, and at that point, he feels insulted. Mind you, he wasn't insulted about his culture being used as cosplay. He was mad that they misunderstood the significance of the tattoos and in their misguided attempts they did something they weren't supposed to. I'm not saying he was wrong to be upset, per se, I'm just saying that cultural appropriation is probably something that the creators of Avatar: The Last Airbender are out of their depths on. Well, this incident sours him on the idea of mixing cultures and in his anger, he jumps right to anti-miscegenation.
Let me repeat that. Avatar Aang, who is supposed to represent all peoples, got angry at some well-intentioned, but severely misguided girls, and decided that the solution would be to support policies that would literally tear apart families. Then he only walked that back because he wouldn't be able to keep Katara. It wasn't him realizing how much damage he would do to other people. It wasn't him understanding that the issue he's trying to solve requires more delicate handling than simply saying "everyone go back to where you came from". It was his selfishness that saved the day (sort of? I think annexing a part of the Earth Kingdom to make pseudo-New York was...questionable at best).
These are the two biggest, if not only examples of the type of leader Aang is. In both cases, his solution had more to do with him, his personal convenience, his feelings, than any thought of how best serve the people looking to him to lead. They are not presented as issues with his leadership, highlighting the ways he needs to grow into his role. The solutions he comes up with are presented as examples of his cleverness and wisdom, but actually, they just show how he leads based on what's best for him. The people of Planet Avatar ** are subject to Aang's whims and how much work he feels like putting in on a given day. But the people he's leading are supposed to think he's a Big Dang Hero. In a better written story, this would be the beginning of a villain arc.
*(btw, it is still The Year of Content ™️©️®️, so probably expect another post in the future about why I think Aang is more in line with the Innocent than the Trickster. Maybe. We'll see...)
** (is there a name for that world in the fandom? Can we come up with one? Planet Avatar is incredibly lame.)
149 notes
·
View notes