#this is a redraw from a similar thing back in july

[rat-king-art]

mystery meat

#my art #art tag #madness combat #deimos #sanford #hank madness combat #2bdamned madcom #this is the fourth time ive tried to post this #tumblr please #this is a redraw from a similar thing back in july

[ivory-sunflower]

Arty Art Things ✨

Hellooo!

I've decided to post some of the arty things I've done either recently or in the last few years, well the pieces I'm somewhat proud of at least. All my posts tend to be a lot more wordy than they need to be but hey it's what I do here!

Conchúr White

Anyone one who's been on this blog for a bit will have probably have seen me talk about this lovely Irish fella. The pencil drawing is actually a year old as of yesterday, I only know that because screenshots of me flipping out about Conchúr following me on twitter popped up in my memories yesterday. I think I'd sent it to him at about 3 in the morning (I was not in a good head space at that point in time), so probably not what he was expecting to see when he opened his phone in the morning aha

The biro version is much more recent: I got bored while sat at my desk and doing research about university courses, saw a biro, saw my old drawing of Conchúr, had an idea. I revisited my GCSE art techniques and here we are. Again, I put this up on Twitter and now (at the the time I'm writing this) when you google "Conchúr White" it's the third top image of him which is a bit mad really. I think I spent all of about 20 minutes on Conchúr but another 45 minutes on the words behind him. The words are the names of the songs on his EP 'Bikini Crops', he doesn't just really love the idea of Channing Tatum driving him around at night in a daisy print bikini... Well maybe he does but what he does in his spare time is none of my business...

TechDif

So I mentioned that the pencil drawing of Conchúr came from a rough patch in my mental health and this one is no different! In fact this one came from an even worse circumstance so we love to see it. I had a bad, bad time in July and this started as a way of distracting myself from what was going on in my head. Without it, I can't honestly say I'd still be here so even if the final product of this had been a terrible mess I would still love it for keeping me alive. However, it did not turn out to be a terrible mess!

Now that the origin of this is out the way, where do I start with TechDif? Unlike Conchúr, I haven't really talked about them on here (unless you count one brief post about Citation Needed) before so I guess I'll do it here. The Technical Difficulties are a wonderful group of 4 British fellas who have had their fair share of fun online and even before. They did a radio show at university together, which went on to become their Reverse Trivia Podcast, later moving on to a panel show called 'Citation Needed': and a game called 'Two of These People Are Lying'. All of which I would thoroughly reccomend, they're one of my go to things when I'm having a rough time. All 4 of them are excellent! Tom Scott (red top, blue jeans on the picture) has his own YouTube channel which does content aside from TechDif. If you're quite nerdy and like science, linguistics, computers, or any number of other things you may enjoy Tom's channel. He is probably best described as "The Moderator" of the group, much like a tired teacher he tries desperately to keep everyone on track with what they're meant to be doing, but usually it does not end well for him. Then we have Matt Gray (space top, holding an ice cream) who also has a channel away from TechDif stuff, he does techy electronic things and has a series called 'Will it Soft Serve?' where he puts all kinds of strange things through a soft serve machine. Matt brings a very specific energy to TechDif and I can't fully describe what that vibe is but I love it. Matt and Tom also share a YouTube channel where TOTPAL is posted and they had a series called 'The Park Bench'. Moving on to everybody's favourite Gary Brannan: Gary Brannan (SATIRE hoodie, glasses) and can I just say, what a fella he is! He's just excellent! He is the one that will argue and rip into Tom the most (not in a malicious way) and hilarity ensues. There are some episodes where he is absolutely on it, getting all the points and others where he very clearly has no idea and that's where some of his funniest quotes come from. Given how badly I was doing at the time I made this, his response to it on Twitter was so so lovely. I specifically remember one tweet where he said I'd made him happy and although it was probably a flippant comment, it just made feel alright for a bit. Yeah I might be feeling awful right now, but I've made someone else happy so that's a nice feeling. Then last but certainly not least, we have Chris Joel (buffalo check shirt, beard)! I would be lying if I said he isn’t my favourite... His sense of humor is the one I vibe with most, he can get rather dramatic in parts and can chat bollocks like a champion. He has absolutely no online presence away from TechDif and, like Rens from Temples, I fully believe he’s a cryptid and lives off in a tree somewhere. 

The picture took me about 4 days to complete, well 4 nights because I did most of it between the hours of 12 a.m. and 7a.m. - I remember watching the sun come through my window each morning. It’s made up of lots of little pieces, all cut out and stuck on; even the sky and hills are made of separate pieces of paper. Nothing was actually drawn on the piece of paper it’s all stuck on, it’s not how I usually do things but if I messed up one little but I could just redraw it rather than ruining the whole thing. The most tedious parts to make were Chris’ shirt because I had to draw each square individually and then join the as well, and cutting out the ban-hammer in the bottom right was surprisingly hard. Every single detail of the picture is a reference to the podcast/shows, I still have the plan sketch and reference list knocking about somewhere. I listened to a lot of true crime videos while making it to the point that certain parts remind me of different cases: the brandy now reminds me of Peter Tobin, and the big spiral thing reminds me of Tim McLean (very harrowing case) - sorry that fact is a bit morbid but interesting nonetheless. 

I did post this for a little bit back in July, but I received some rather awful messages so I took it down. Generally, Tom Scott/TechDif fans are lovely but there’s been a few that have taken a disliking to me for some reason so I’m hoping they don’t resurface again. I’m in a better head space now though, so even if they do I’m more equipped to deal with it this time.

Hozier

This was a quick sketch I did in April, I was getting bored with lockdown and decided to summon the bog man himself. There’s not really much more backstory than that, no poor mental health story, no fun twitter story - he’s just here. He’s vibing. I will say I’m particularly proud of his nose, I just think it’s one of the best noses I’ve ever drawn. His hand is okay, but I think that the hands on my Conchúr drawings are better. So there is the Hozi-Boi...

The Corpse Bry

I’ve talked about Bry on here before as well, I love him, he’s excellent, top lad. He is a living Tim Burton character, he’s 6′6, very skinny, and his legs are longer than my will to live. I was watching ‘The Corpse Bride’ a few weeks ago and suddenly had an idea and so ‘The Corpse Bry’ came to be. I gave him a little panda friend because the panda has always been his animal - he used to wear a panda beanie all the time and his album had a panda on the cover. Again, there’s not really a fun story behind this one, I guess it’s somewhat fun because it’s the first art I made after finishing my psychology exams in October so it was nice to actually have the time to draw.

James Bagshaw

Ginger talking about Temples for the third post in a row? it’s more likely than you think! I did this one last week, I’d had a bit of a wobbly day and had group therapy on Teams in the evening and I just couldn’t concentrate on what was going on and I ended up doodling Mr James E. Bagshaw, the glitter crying fraggle man himself. It’s a bare-bones drawing that I could definitely work into more but I’m happy with it as it is to be honest. I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit and add the individual bits of fringe to his jacket, just thinking about doing that makes me tired. Maybe I’ll get around to drawing the whole band at some point...

Alice in “Wonderland”

This one is from about 5(?) years ago, it’s not my typical style and was a “study” based on another artists work (basically i just had to copy this fellas work). I’ll be honest, this one has a sketchy backstory that I won’t go in to because it’s not exactly a nice one, and because of that I also won’t say who the artist is that it’s based on. Despite this, I’m still really proud of this one and I’m so sad that I never got this piece back after I got taken out the class. I’ve considered trying this style again, I’ve even joked about doing another Conchúr drawing in this style as a nod to my progression through GCSE art, eventually leading to Conchúr drawn in ink on music manuscript and stained with neon paint and dyes - it would be quite the project!

So this has been quite a lengthy post so apologies about that but life goes on. Similar to the vinyl post, I’ll probably add to this as and when I make more art. Even if no one is reading these posts, I’m enjoying making them so that’s the main thing. It’s just nice to document things and the feelings that go with them. 💕

~ Love Ginger xx 

29/11/2020

#personal✨ #art✨ #conchúr white #Tom Scott #tomscottgo #matt gray #gary brannan #chris joel #techdif #the technical difficulties #hozier #bry #bryontour #bribry #james bagshaw #temples #temples band #templesband #wonderland #cottagecore #ginger #redhead #Aesthetic #faerie

[thewakingcloak]

Spacefarer Newsletter: July 2020

Another month, another letter delivered right into your very phalanges!

Looking back over my development notes from this July has been pretty encouraging. It’s easy to feel like you’re not getting anywhere, so this is one reason I love keeping logs. This July, I got pretty close to grinding to a halt because I took on too much stuff, and it almost seemed like that’s how the whole month had gone. But no!

So picking up where I left off in June: tile collisions. Tile collision is a much nicer approach to creating walls for the player. It increases game performance and is much less time consuming and irritating to place than collider objects. And these tile collisions work! But they had a weird jitter when colliding that is no bueno. After loads of debugging and conversations with PixelatedPope, we discovered that the collision method was not precise enough to work with tile collision. So I put that change on the backburner.

And then I tackled jumping.

In last month’s newsletter, I talked about how this was all pretty easy to get working. And it was. But there’s another dimension (ha ha) to all this, and it’s the most complicated one: adding a z axis.

Now, many of you are probably familiar with x and y axes. In a 2D game, x is the “width” of the game world, east/west, and y is the “height” of the game world, north/south. The z axis is the “depth” of the game world, up/down. This is actually way easier to represent in 3D games, because 3D requires all three dimensions to be... y’know, 3D.

Displaying this z-index in a 2D game is pretty tricky. It’s not like you can just move stuff closer to the camera. That would just look like you’re increasing the size of things. Instead, you use the y-axis to represent the z-axis too. And while that’s a little tricky, it’s not the hardest part. The hardest part is doing this:

Essentially to get the depth all working properly (player can walk behind something but then jump on and walk in front of that thing), I had to use an object (you can't change tile depth). But since I don't want to make a bespoke object for every single raised platform, this object is a bit more clever. It creates its own sprite by drawing all the tilemaps under it onto a surface and then pulling the sprite from that surface (a surface is basically just a thing you can make GameMaker draw to).

And then you have to get the depth and z and so on set up correctly and blah blah technical stuff. If you’re making a game in GameMaker and you want to get jumping working with the z-axis, go check out this 5-minute video by Matharoo.

Alright, alright, so that’s a big deal, but that’s all the major stuff I should improve on for this episode, right? Don’t want to bite off more than we can chew. And that is where you would be wrong! :D

See, with jumping, we have a problem: the exterior and interiors are drawn at different perspectives. Outside is drawn from the front looking down (you see the fronts of walls), while interiors are like looking down into a box (you see all four walls). This would mean I would have to have two different ways for jumping to work based on whether you’re outside or inside. That’s confusing for everyone.

Currently (well not currently anymore), the interiors follow the classic Zelda perspective. It’s like you’re looking down into a box of a room and can see all four walls. This is so that you can easily see doors on walls, bomb those walls, etc. However, in order for you to see Link and all the enemies and stuff in the rooms and not just have it be the tops of their heads, these are drawn to another perspective, almost like they’re all “laying down” on the ground.

This decision was made for a good reason (you can see doors on all walls), but it’s also super weird if you think about it. It also gets complicated when you have multiple “layers” in a room because then you have to do stuff like this:

And this is confusing. I had players who were confused. They didn’t really know what layer they were on, whether they were going up or down, etc.

The solution is this: make everything use the same perspective. This unifies the exterior and interior; cuts down on weird walls; reads more clearly for the player; allows for a single, intuitive jumping system; and, I think, is just way nicer to look at.

Before:

After:

Okay, so yeah, I also have to redraw a buuuunch of tiles. Whee. But it’s for a good cause.

While I was at it, I updated my palette some more. I learned about “hue shifting” in color ranges, and there are a few colors that I’ve felt dissatisfied with for a while anyway. I removed one of the grays, opting instead for a similar light blue that was already part of the palette, then did a similar thing for a dark green. Then I changed some browns to make them a little less heavy and bland.

Drew a new version of the ocean tiles that I’m finally happy with! And I drew all kinds of tiles for a seafarin’ ship which was fun. I drew some waterfall tiles too, and new cliffs (8px and 16px variants). Lots of art to get done, and I’m pleased with how it’s going.

As a bit of a break, I did some long overdue optimization. Tall grass was apparently accounting for 11% of each step’s processing power, which is kind of insane. Turns out every single grass object was checking collisions with every single collider and actor object. All I need is to check for tall grass so I can display the “rustling” sprite. So I flipped it around so the actor object was doing the checking, and voila, we gain like 100 FPS. I then went through and set a few different objects to deactivate when they’re not in the current area, as well as triggering the deactivate script when the room is loaded, and suddenly another +100 FPS. Hopefully this will make things run faster for some of you folks on old potato machines.

Near the end of the month, Pixelated Pope got back with me with some fixes for the jittery tile collision. After a few tests, I implemented it in my PD3 project. It took a few attempts (the GMS2 beta was being a bit unstable), but eventually it was working! Shout out to Pixelated Pope for his hard work on this system.

And finally, I started to put it all together. This ended up exposing a lot of issues with my system, some of which I still have to resolve. Namely, 1) walking off an edge is too lenient, but if I make it stricter, the player gets stuck the cliff, and 2) my system to draw tiles on my z object does not properly handle tile animation. Oh, and building these cliff objects is painstaking.

BUT.

YEAH THIS DOES WORK. It’s pretty fun clambering around!

That’s it for this month! Onward to August!

#devlog #devblog #gamedev #indiedev #newsletter #ProtoDungeon #The Waking Cloak

[pan-princess-levy]

pan-princess-levy’s (that’s me!) 2019 summary of art

wow! what an year this was! time for retrospection...

holy hell, i drew... a lot of stuff. i dont think there are quite the 500 files (both process and finished) for 2019 but i think i drew maybe. 250? 300 separate pieces? and im so proud of myself!

lets just ignore the fact only half of my summary pieces are published ones and the other half are just favorites from my un-published work hahahAHAHHA

(as you can probably guess, the months where the drawings are the most sketchy - february, april and november - didnt really have that much artwork im proud of. i have an excuse for novermber, because i was writing for nanowrimo, but i have no memory of the other two. rip me.)

so! a word for every piece!

january: a sketch of cana im still awfully proud of! i used a poster of luke evans as bard the bowman from the hobbit trilogy as a base and im just! still shook

february: part 3 (summer) of my seasons levy drawings alas i never got to autumn it’s connected to one of my countless aus, where she is a forest guardian spirit 

march: this piece of gajeel! (but with a the agender pride flag because i got up to editing it later) im still so fond of how it came out! i used it for discord icon for a while back then

april: a clothing/jewelry study i was doing! it is kind of connected to another au i shall never write. (yes. there are. a lot of them.)

may: the famous mermay piece! it was drawn for the first weekly challenge organized on the @gajevyevents discord server and i still think its one of best pieces. very proud of it

june: this amazing levy piece for pride month! i did a lot of drawings for pride as part of a project by @ft-wwtdp but this one is closer to my heart. shes a flower gorl,,,,

july: okay. this one? this one is one my favorite drawing i’ve ever done. it’s my phone wallpaper. it might? look silly and crappy compared to the rest? but it’s my favorite and i love it so much! it’s a silly pokemon au inspired by the pokemon 2014 masters division spectacular pachirisu. IM A NERD OKAY (theyre just. so soft.)

august: ALRIGHT! THIS! THIS ONE! this one is so dear to my heart because its a redraw of one ancient drawing of mine. back in the day i had a voltron au and this is levy’s design for that au but just. this drawing makes me go all soft.

september: this piece i did for @finweanladiesweek! it was the first silm fandom event i took part in and it still fills me with warmth. i had so much fun drawing it - september was when i caved in and finally bought clip studio paint and you can clearly see the difference in quality from there

october: my profile picture! god this one was so much fun, i will never forget it. i thought a lot about this one, whether i wanted to put it or the gajeel day piece i did, but in the end i found i liked this a little bit better. 

november: alright, no lies here, i have only like 4 or 5 drawing from november because i was so busy with nanowrimo! this one is a gajeel design study. i struggled a lot between it and another similar piece (gajeel in full profile instead of 3/4) but at last decided on this one. its,,,, soft,,, he soft,,,

december: THIS BAD BOY! i poured hours upon hours of research on this one, it can fit so many artist crying fits. i still think its one of the best ive done, and its so shiny and bright.....

i dont think im supposed to reminisce so hard but it’s the end of the year and im just. im having a lot of feels, you know? i grew up a lot as person, both creative and personal-wise, a lot of things happened. im very happy with all the progress ive done and i cannot wait for what awaits me next year. 

i hope 2019 was good to you and i wish you a happier and merrier 2020!

#artists on tumblr #tumblr artist #art summary #2019 art sumary #art on tumblr #monnydoesart #monny talks #wow that was a lot! #i dont think it was the worst year for me #and im kind of #proud of myself?

[katzirrart]

Art Growth Compilation

I really enjoy doing posts about improvement in art.

It makes me feel better about my work, especially with how busy I am these days.

I wanted to compile all the comparisons I’ve made over the years and kinda discuss the posts, for myself or others.

I thought it’d be funny to start with comparing how I first drew on a tablet, using dodge and burn tools, to how I do now which is using layers and actually painting. It’s funny to look back on that, you know?

I linked the post I made, compiling all the month to month memes from 2003-2017 that I try and do yearly. And everything else is under a cut ;w;’‘/

Most artists have done a drawing of themselves and a few Pokemon, or their team. I did that in 2010, and was dissatisfied with my work...

I took a crack again in 2013 after I’d learned to draw more animals and not be so Edgy(tm) I really liked the results. I still didn’t use references though, because I was lazy. I just didn’t want to. I still was on that boat feeling like I was CHEATING. I wasn’t being CREATIVE if I looked at references.

Artists get stuck on using reference and it’s AWFUL. USE THEM. USE TWENTY. LEARN!! It’s so HELPFUL, I wish I had started sooner.

In 2014 though -

I tried again.

I had gotten better at anatomy, but most of all, I started to work off references more. I started to really focus on not stylizing so much, but to work on actually making things look like things. I started to work on caring about COMPARISON sizes. Composition!!

While Pokemon reference sizes are -wiggle hands- and while my team changed up, I was satisfied that I could draw Arbok ACTUALLY like a cobra now, Meowth is easy given it’s just a noseless cat so to speak, Haunter is literally a triangle cloud - I was satisfied having drawn that team.

My secondary team in the new games? I was excited to draw them. It was fresh and new and FUN and it turned out PRECIOUS.

I learned better how to proportion things in an image for layout, and just... making characters feel COHESIVE in the same space.

It was a nice thing to keep visiting. I have a sketch in the works for an update even hopefully.

These pieces are kind of interesting to me too, because they’re towards the end of my era of THIN lineart?

My lineart has gone from this, and THIS,  to this.

Literally I use to not believe in line weight, I can still do thin work of course, but I’m not a fan of trying to FORCE it like I use to? Even the second link, I went from the SMALLEST brush in Sai, to using a marker brush that had barely ANY give, to a custom brush on Sai that acts like a Paint Chat brush I use to use with friends online!

That’s what I mean about style too, like you may reserve yourself about things - like not coloring black in and outlining with white, or certain ways you do things. But the growth and changing and figuring FUN ways to color that black etc is where the fun of art comes in, to me??

Learn. EXPERIMENT. PUSH!

A few months ago, I did my first redraw. Of this piece from 2012.

Six years difference.

This was interesting for a number of reasons. There’s aspects I like more in the old one, but not many. I really like the pose a bit better, but I like the casual closeness that I did in the new one because that’s more my Shepard.

But technically speaking, it’s worlds better because I took time. I paid attention to details. I did fun things instead of rushing. I took time with my coloring and didn’t SMEAR it around. I had a friend who use to complain I drew so fast and they felt so SLOW, but I love what that taught me. I started taking more time on my art, and enjoying it more since I caught more mistakes and vastly improved. By leaps and bounds.

It’s amazing what a difference six years makes in not only style, which is often a FOCUS of these things? My style has come awkwardly and naturally to me over the years of critically picking certain things apart? but I really love where it’s gotten.

I have things I want to get back to, but I love... where it is, and CAN be?

But it’s wild to me how much change happens in technical handling? It’s a hand in hand thing, you can’t focus on one or the other only, or the other suffers.

Honestly this has been my favorite improvement to notice though?

Kisame was a character I felt I should be able to draw EASILY? Not so much. Itachi? ALSO EASY. Not so much??

Kisame has weird eyes to grasp how to draw? Thus focusing on them kept making them wonky to me!! On top of that, he’s everything I’ve been use to drawing for AGES because he has a muscular body, with a smaller waist? ... that was something I was use to drawing? I still was awkward getting back into the swing of that... Drawing HIS HAIR though? NOT SO EASY....

But like, Itachi should have been easy, but I have a thing about him appearing too feminine as he gets drawn because his eyelashes, and I’ve really found a nice... medium at this point?

But even still like my face styles and eye styles are finally to a comfortable point for me? I have stopped focusing on some weird things with Itachi’s hair and just... DO IT? But even still like...

The improvement here is literally just if I don’t know how to do something, or I’m not satisfied with how I do it? I just keep at it.

It’s a theme of this post honestly... repetition, persistence.

Keep drawing it. Keep trying to figure out what it is that’s catching you off about how you do it. Don’t like how you do eyes or how they fit on the face? Look at facial structures and references and figure it out. Draw them separate and figure out how to apply them to what you are.

Remember there’s a skull in there. I draw the holes in the skull like the eye sockets, and the nose area to help my proportions for SURE.

I’ve also gotten to a nice marriage in my lineart? The piece before the recent one, those lines feel HARDER or HEAVIER? The newest piece seems...softer? Like I’m lighter handed again?

I really like critiquing my own growth on what is good or working better for me? Older pieces it looks like I’m putting lineweight for SAKE of it versus where it goes now?

INTERESTING.

Like this lineup -

My style shifts so RAPIDLY, it still is noticeably MY style to people, but parts shift so VIOLENTLY because I’m constantly picking at what I don’t LIKE.

It’s funny too in the case of Kisame and Itachi because consistently I’m drawing the SAME character over and over - can make you REALIZE how you’re doing something wrong?

Like, here’s a difference of eight years, and it’s all the brush I use now, and it REALLY shows how my style has changed - in the aspect of one point of reference?

I have a childhood favorite character too, of Daisuke, and I use to be bad at drawing boys, and I use to be SUPER bad at drawing fluffy hair?

It was something I specifically started to learn to do? And I started to draw Daisuke every few months or years for a while. Especially when I started to first REALIZE I didn’t like my style that much?

But the middle one was July 2009, top left is less than 6 months later, and the last one is about a year later. DRASTIC DIFFERENCE. But next -

This one was in 2012, when I started to do more with teeth, or first dipping my toes into anatomy. I started to focus more on HANDS too, I was super bad at them. Overall I started to focus more on making my art have...ages? Like a boy versus a man. Facial features being DIFFERENT.

I can look at this boring little bust and see that he comes off more of a teenage boy to me now. I need to work more on figuring how to draw asian features especially the eyes. Sometimes I hit the mark, other times I don’t.

but between this and 2012? Not too much has changed. I do hair fluffier now, and I angle the eyes better. The teeth not being outlined doesn’t give that weird effect where I might give him TOO MANY TEETH....

People do that and it’s easy but whoof.

So there’s still learning and adapting to do in QUICK drawings, you know? but I can still see there’s good things. That took me like 5 minutes to draw? Not bad honestly.

In it’s own bracket is original characters though too?? But also divergent of STYLE shifts because like...

OKAY. Nightmare Syndicate’s story.. started for me in 7th or 8th grade, that was when I was...14? 15? I’ve been fleshing it out for like 13 years, that’s wild haha!! I love my kids and all.

But okay so SIALI. She’s still fairly similar but I restructured her face for SURE. She’s gotten less edgy, she’s.... a teenage girl.

FELIX?? CHRIST. He’s been such a long journey!! More on that later?

Rot and even Cor?? Rot and Cor are a shorter span of development, but Rot started in Highschool so almost 10 years ago, and Cor has been fairly solid - but even just DRAWING him over three years? Go look at how much he changes.. I’m not married to concepts easily. haha!

People act like making a character you’re STUCK with it. Like Oh boy, I better make this character good, from the get go!!

I only worry about that with small potatoes like my Pillar(Gods) designs I just made for the comic?? Even still, small things will change with them I’m sure.

But not only has Felix and Siali changed, but they’ve GROWN with my style and DEFINED it even. I’ve had to adjust my style to support Felix’s look honestly a LOT. Bend my rules. Break my anatomy stickler attitude - and honestly, that’s the thing.

You have to learn the rules and anatomy BEFORE you can break them. A style built upon broken anatomy will fail you down the road if you just excuse everything with style.

Learn to draw the hands. Learn to draw the feet. Figure out the face. Bones exist. You can break the FUCK out of it once you learn how to do it, you know? Like I’ve seen so many styles I LOVE who are cartoony and BROKEN AS FUCK, but there’s still some STRUCTURE to it. Most of those people can still structure a face just fine, and the reason exaggeration works so well is because there’s like unwritten rules for what works and doesn’t based on that?

Idk.

Felix has a very elongated torso, he’s like 7′ or 8′ tall so I mean?? He’s... broken anatomy, but he’s... lanky - but his muscle is LITHE and stretched. It makes contextual sense. That’s the important part.

But even designs, it’s important to understand designs YOU make, or like... to understand they’ll CHANGE and that’s growth within your art too?

Like okay, example. Felix has a millipede inspired monster form. But with designing that? I still have to know how millipedes and SNAKES work because there's bones and vertebrae in there??

But there’s also the difference of like... CONCEPT, versus execution. You can design a fucking badass character, but understanding your own concept is SOMETHING.

I had no idea how this would play out, until I was mapping out his ‘midsection’ spikes? and man. MY STYLE WAS MADE FOR THIS CHALLENGE NOW. Which is so interesting how smooth my style has always been? Felix has defined ANGLES in it, and it’s hilarious tbh?

But even too, I’ve had to work with Felix’s monster form FACE, to break the rules to make it WORK the way I need it too?

On the anatomy subject too, like when I first got into Marvel comics 6 years ago or so? I had no idea how to do muscle structures?? I was so BAD at it.

I can look at this left image and CRINGE so badly at how NONE of those are muscles?? THOSE ARE THINGS I PERCEIVE AS MUSCLES. Like...

A course I took taught me to draw what I see, not what I know. That’s the whole point of that post that goes around about drawing a shrimp. Look it up. It’s hilarious and cute.

But it’s like, asking an artist to draw a bike, you can tell who uses reference and who WINGS it. It’s funny, but like it’s what you know versus what you see.

I started to study anatomy like crazy and was seeing improvements days at a time. The right image was done like... a month later? already I can see the muscles under the pectorals? those look normal now. the abs aren’t dough lumps under the skin in a perfect 6 pack, they’re the actual plane shapes.

I was trying to find a good reference for myself of learning to make men ‘thicker’ too in terms of the waist etc since the left is really...thin.... but...

A bit better, but even still, comparing these two - they’re 2 months apart? and I can see understanding more about arms and how they connect to the body, where the planes ACTUALLY lay for the chest and obliques and such?

I can see improvements from July 2012 up there, to - WHOOPS. I FORGOT TO CHANGE THE YEAR LMAO... TO FEBRUARY 2013...omg

I mean, I could go on and on about improvements I see, when I go through my art though? Gosh.

Like I’m seeing so SO many bad hands and feet in my old stuff, and just CRINGING because tricks I learned for myself by now?

I give so many pointers and streams and screenshares on discord still to help people with art and it cracks me up?? Like...

I dunno. I’m pretty mediocre tbh, but god damn.

#art improvement #art meme #pep talk

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

24 July 2020: Amazon Dash cart: the trolley inside the self-scan bleeper

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

Amazon Dash cart: the trolley inside the self-scan bleeper

Back in 2016(!) the newsletter characterised Amazon Go as the shop placed inside the checkout: “So where stores contain self-serve checkouts and payment queues today, in Amazon’s future the checkout machine has grown in size until it contains the entire store on its weighing pan”.

Now Amazon is trying out some variants of the Go idea. The new Dash Cart is designed for smallish two-bag shopping trips and moves all the expensive computer vision tech into the smart shopping trolley itself, and a dedicated checkout lane:

“The end result is similar to the Amazon Go grocery and convenience stores, without the elaborate technical infrastructure of those stores. The Dash Cart works on its own, requiring no sensors in the shelves or specialized cameras overhead.”

(If the clever stuff is in the trolley, they’ll need to be robust. It also means that trolley theft will need to be minimised, otherwise local canals will be full of dead Dash carts.)

“The [Dash] cart uses a combination of computer vision algorithms and sensor fusion to identify items you put in the cart. When you exit through the store’s Amazon Dash Cart lane, sensors automatically identify the cart, and your payment is processed using the credit card on your Amazon account” 

So, rather than the whole shop inside the checkout machine, this is the checkout inside the self-scanning bleeper. The Dash cart idea has critics who point out that the standard Go store already has a clearer proposition (“just walk out”). But maybe it’s better to think of Dash cart as a marketing reference system that helps third party supermarket chains see how they could retrofit their existing stores to add Go technology: a few months ago Amazon said it would start licensing Go technology to other supermarkets.

Related: other smart trolley companies include Veeve, Caper and Smart Cart (website seemingly down but this video was good.)

Grocery landscape goes online but margins drop

Ocado says the switch to online shopping is permanent: “we have seen years of growth in the online grocery market condensed into a matter of months; and we won't be going back [...] leading to a permanent redrawing of the landscape of the grocery industry worldwide”.

How to ramp up online grocery - without breaking the bank outlines the hard choices grocery currently faces. Part of the problem is that supermarkets have subsidised online shopping, making delivery and click and collect cheap or free. And running online services on top of existing offline supermarket infrastructure (eg dark stores) also adds cost.

“Those that choose not to expand online will avoid short-term earnings erosion, but their resulting lack of digital infrastructure could leave them uncompetitive in the long term. Grocers that scale up through a third party to meet demand will be similarly vulnerable if the partnership ends and leaves them without e-commerce operations. Yet according to our modeling, a grocer that ramps up its own online arm without structural reform could see its overall profitability fall by 50–80 basis points over the next five years depending on the rate of online growth”

Dedicated, automated local distribution centres would offer better margins, if your supermarket can bear the capital expenditure setting them up. That piece is also interesting because it suggests three scenarios for the future, which broadly say “if the virus remains rampant or if virus management remains strict, online does better”.

Elsewhere in grocery:

Bother is a supermarket that wants to handle the boring household basics and cupboard staples, freeing up your time to shop locally for fresh groceries. The pricing model is “boxes” rather than subscriptions, which might be surprising: wouldn’t boring staple consumables be good candidates to bundle into even lower friction subscriptions?

Loop will launch its branded-products-delivered-in-reusable-packaging service in the UK and is doing a trial partnership with Tesco.

Retail jobs

1,500 staff at Morrisons head office will work 4 days a week. Marks & Spencer is “to cut hundreds of jobs” as coronavirus hits sales. Lidl plans to open a shop a week until Christmas, creating 1,000 jobs. Tesco staff are to take on cleaning duties (controversial).

How Zoom’s pricing model helped it win video conferencing

Zoom did their homework: capping the meeting length rather than the number of participants was the key move. “The Zoom team did research and found that the average video-conference meeting is 45 minutes. Putting the free limit right under that enabled them to offer a holistic product experience for free without having to worry about revenue cannibalization.”

Designing for society

Good piece by Sarah Gold at Projects by IF on the need to shift from “users first” to “society-centred”.

“We have a collective opportunity right now to design out the structural inequalities around us. To collectively hold each other accountable, to examine our existing products and services to make sure they are equitable. [...] To take a society-centered approach means fundamentally looking at the underlying values of your business. Until now, individual needs have been the foundation of a business’ growth, profit, and culture. Now it’s time to look towards society’s needs.”

Various things

Delivery “robots” that are actually driven remotely by people in Colombia.

Google is redesigning its chat products - a response to Microsoft Teams and Slack.

“Carbon savings” from Covid-19 lockdown halve within weeks.

Co-op Digital news and events

Remote research: Funeralcare’s ‘start an arrangement online’ form:

“Death is an emotional subject and research around funerals must always be carried out with acute sensitivity. However, carrying out research around funerals in the midst of a pandemic has been particularly challenging – doing it remotely makes it harder to pick up on non-verbal communication so we’ve had to tread even more carefully than usual”.

The Federation House team is running weekly drop-in chats for the community every Wednesday at 10am: Join us here. See our online events. You can also see how The Federation is planning for a safe return to the co-working floor.

Free events 

Andy’s Man Club – Gentleman's Peer to Peer Mental Health Meet Up – Mondays 7pm

Self Care – Online Workshops – Various dates/times in July

GM Tech Collective – Online Discussion - 28 July - 10am

What’s next for the Covid generation? – Webinar – 29 July – 1pm

How to build your tech business - Webinar – 30 July – 5pm

Northern Azure User Group – Meet Up – 5 Aug – 6pm

Virtual Data Expedition – Online Workshop – 11 Aug – 10am

NW Drupal User Group – Meet Up – 11 Aug - 7pm

Paid for events

Invisible Cities - Online Tours of Manchester or Edinburgh – Various Dates & Times

Mandala Yoga – Online Yoga Sessions - Various Dates & Times

Thank you for reading

Thank you, beloved readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend! If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

[ladystylestores]

Celebrate Memorial Day with 10 software deals you can’t afford to miss

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In addition to the deals listed below, you can take an extra 20 percent off of your order by using coupon code SUMMERSAVE20 at checkout.

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VB Transform 2020 Online – July 15-17. Join leading AI executives: Register for the free livestream.

If you’re a digital artist who has been particularly stricken by the pandemic, there are few more cost-efficient options than Flame Painter 4. Flame Painter brings the joy of digital art to anyone with a modern Mac or Windows machine and includes groundbreaking Particle Systems to open a whole new world of computer artistry. Whether you’re just getting started or you’re already an experienced digital painter, you will be blown away by the customization options and organic multi-brushes, allowing variety in a single stroke without having to redraw individual elements. A lifetime subscription to Flame Painter 4 is currently on sale for only $15, nearly 85 percent off of its original price.

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Proper grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure are all things that fall by the wayside in the age of texting and email shorthand. However, these elements of language are crucial to being taken seriously by a professor, employer, or potential employer. If you’re unsure of your grammatical prowess, check out WhiteSmoke Grammar Checker. WhiteSmoke detects and corrects errors in grammar, identifies incorrect stylistic patterns, and even translates texts in over 50 languages. A 5-year subscription to WhiteSmoke will currently run you just $32, more than 90 percent off.

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from World Wide News https://ift.tt/2zcPK3f

#World Wide News

[miaou-ml]

Another year of progress!

Oops...this is getting posted a little late because I forgot about it... XD

January: Nothing here because I wasn’t doing too good at the start of the year. Things happened...I lost some friends. I do have some hidden doodles from this month, but the only art thing I posted was a vent comic, and I REALLY didn’t want that to be in the art summary. On a positive note, I did manage to create a complex MMD model, custom physics and everything.

February: Another somewhat slow month. College ate up pretty much all of my time, because I wasn’t aware that I was taking too many classes. The piece from this month I did for my illustration class, in which we had to create a new design for a playing card.

March: So this was when I got into Bendy and the Ink Machine, and it quickly became my [autism] special interest. I drew a LOT of art for it within two months, both digitally and traditionally. I don’t do a lot of traditional inking stuff, but BATIM got me more into wanting to do it.

April: More BATIM stuff! This month I had my Animation 101 final due. The assignment was to make an animation that copies a certain animation style, so I went with a 30s look. You can see the animation here. I drew this poster a few weeks later because I got the idea from the animation. 

May: I went to redraw some old af humanized Viva Pinata designs this month, cus I felt like rewatching the show. I was able to post a bit more art this month since the college semester was over, although most of it was just doodles. Other notable things I drew was my second BATIM contest entry, and the fake SU screenshot that people believed was real.

June: This was the month that I made Mimi, and my best friend Kurt established Raziel’s character. I watched Howl’s Moving Castle for the first time, because he said that Howl’s personality was similar to Raziel’s, and that’s where this month’s pic came from. Their relationship gives me life tbh.

July: Huge month for me and my art. I participated in the annual Artfight, which is basically a series of spontaneous art trades. People on the opposing team will draw your characters to “attack” your team, and you have to draw them a revenge attack in return. Last year, I drew 40 pieces, and I’m definitely going to do it again this year! Constant drawing massively improved my art.

August: This month was pretty slow. I began to focus on creating a more complex painting style, to better myself from last year. This painting I did is of my character, Mallory. At the end of the month I started attending community college, to transfer credits back to my main college later this year.

September: Another month where I didn’t post much. A lot of my time was spent focusing on college work. When I wasn’t doing that, I was either doodling (traditionally on paper, preparing for inktober), or playing Overwatch with my friends. I’d gotten the game when it first came out, played it for a bit, but then stopped for over a year after my main computer couldn’t handle it, so this month I finally started playing again.

October: Second biggest month for my art. I completed inktober, and I’m proud of myself for sticking through all the way! This piece however, was what I painted for Kurt’s birthday. It was the one single digital piece I did this month.

November: After inktober, I became lazy and pretty much just doodled, without fully finishing any pieces, which is why there is such few art in the last two months. This was one of the few things I did finish. I’m most likely going to draw these guys a bit more, since I really like the designs that I made.

December: I literally only posted twice this month. I was in a really bad slump for several weeks after the semester ended, so all I was doing was doodling and playing Overwatch. I didn’t have the energy to really finish anything until the end of the month. Marvin the Martian has been my favorite cartoon character of all time ever since I was a kid, and I’ve been trying to draw him ever since I first started art.

#art summary #2017 art summary #2017

[finsterhund]

Finsterhund’s 2017 Summary of Art (and by extension, the rest of my life)

I’d be lying if I said that 2017 wasn’t an incredibly difficult year for the easily excitable finsterhund but it was also a very productive year for my art. I’m not going to deny that. A lot of issues came about that pushed me really hard, and I did break, but I mended too. I grew stronger in some ways. My writing took a nosedive and I’m not sure how to repair that, but my art, well... this is the first time I’ve ever done one of these. That should speak for itself.

In some months it was difficult to pick which one. I decided against choosing ones that may have been partially rotoscoped (such as my reaction images and most memes) and also because I tend to draw too similar to reference images I use. So no redraws of blurry HoD concept art or stuff.

January: [x]

This was supposed to be the picture for holidays 2016 but I’m a lazy earth boy who must’ve been slacking off because I finished and posted it right on January first! I remember at the time I was really proud of this one, and spent a lot of time on it. It was drawn traditionally and then scanned and digitized in GIMP... yes gimp. Fishy loved it and that made me happy. Nowadays I can pick apart so many flaws, especially in Andy. The lines look so shaky! Maybe I’ll redraw it for January 1st 2018! Assuming I don’t slack off again.

February: [x]

It was hard picking one from this month because I didn’t really like my drawings from then. Here’s art in paint of Red Spot eating a burger. I used to draw him with food when I was hungry for a while. Mmmmmm borger.

March: [x]

This is the month things started to take a nosedive. There was lots of good things happening, but some bad stuff too. A few new problems arose, but at the time the biggest was I found out my birth mom was being evicted and I would have to help her clear the old house. THAT old house. I retreated heavily into my artistic comforts and drew a lot of pictures of Red Spot being comforting and supportive to Andy. Red was created for that purpose after all, and Andy being a character I so closely identify with ended up being the comfort I needed especially then. Despite its crudeness in ms paint I do love this picture and should redraw it in Sai at some point.

April: [x]

The trials I had to face were unreal this month. The Wannabe War(tm) is well underway, and the time to return to the old house rapidly approached. I drew like there was no tomorrow, and these paint pictures were the best. Smoother lines, and more detail. When the time came to face that house things got ugly. Mom hid that my dog Jack had been dead for over half a year and broke the news only when I became distraught when I arrived and he didn’t come when I called him. My fixation on the “monkey’s paw” that was ruining everything I ever wished for started around here, and I kept breaking down. Bad regressing back to before I left that place happened. But something else did too. I DIDN’T. STOP. DRAWING. I drew more and more. Choosing to bring my laptop allowed me to make more pictures. A lot of Red Spot and Andy comfort ones, some mean little immature vent comics, and memes. Lots of memes. I was able to do the job I went there to do and returned home exhausted but VICTORIOUS. My art? Well I think I actually improved a lot then. It was predominantly due to surviving in spite of everything and the sheer volume of cruddy little paint drawings. I didn’t want to pick a mean comic and already had one ms paint Andy and Red picture in this line up so here’s a surprisingly detailed xenomorph queen being licked by a prequel era character who is a massive spoiler. Not only were both characters very complicated to draw, but I’m genuinely shocked I was able to draw an xenomorph at all.

May: [x]

After the painful embarrassment of April I tried really hard to relax. I was still really scared and anxious about the Wannabe incident, but it had more or less turned into a post-arms race stalemate where he wasn’t really doing anything and I just had my weapons of mass destruction pointed at him with my grubby little orange paw over the launch button which is where things have been ever since. My art took a relaxation break, but it was still steadily getting better. Late May I wanted to come up with a reason to actually celebrate my birthday (June 3rd) so I did a silly little “June is International Heart of Darkness month” post featuring Red and Andy sharing a slice of chocolate cake. I went on to say that June 3rd was “International draw heart of darkness fan art” day (real smooth you egocentric mutt) but I thought it’d be a good way to actually celebrate the day but make it about the video game that gave me a reason to live another year instead of about me aging, as I openly hate that I grow older.

June: [x]

A few of my friends drew HoD stuff this month, but a lot of my friends were busy due to jobs, school, life, etc. We used to be a lot more active in 2015 and even in 2016 so this did hit me pretty hard. As a result, I become very frustrated and out of spite decide it’s finally time to test my “new toy.” I don’t remember when Kale actually gave me his old tablet, but in June I finally install its drivers, get a copy of paint tool sai, and draw a lot with it. At first I hate these pictures and go back to paint whenever possible. There’s something wrong with my copy of sai and windows 10 doesn’t like the drivers. But I push myself, and I start to make more pictures of Andy, Whisky, Red Spot, etc. Not a lot of my early Sai pictures ever got posted or even made it past the inking stage, but one night I just couldn’t sleep so I drew Andy cradled in the crook of Red’s wing and got it to the flat colors stage.

July: [x]

I try to calm down. it’s a good month I think. Not much happens. It’s the month I finally give myself a new fursona. I decided that Red Spot isn’t “me” and I can’t use Andy in furry communities so I come up with a solution. It... it’s just Andy as a doberman. It’s a little orange doberman that wears a red bandanna and Andy’s hat... Doberman Andy. But he’s cute, and I can draw him, and so I do draw him. And he helps me get better at drawing in Sai.

August: [x]

The month of the solar eclipse! Me and my friend were going to go down to the US to see it together and... nope... that plan fell through. It makes me a brat, but that’s okay because I can just draw six hundred thousand drawings of Andy. That’ll help me feel better. I ended up having a sabbatical from my blog after some people on tumblr began to bother me and I put up a drawing of Andy’s shoe so nobody could go in. This is an MS Paint picture! Sadly, I’ve stopped really drawing in the program. I like how I did Andy’s face even if his hat and hair weren’t the best.

September: [x]

I return from my sabbatical and begin to spam my tumblr with Andy drawings I’m making in paint tool sai. The quality and style of Andy in these pictures varies drastically as I try a whole manner of new things. At one point I make a post that has five color pictures of Andy in it. It’s slowly becoming difficult to pick which picture I wanted to put here. Not because I didn’t like any, but because I liked too many. SMOL Andy was probably my favourite of the bunch. I made him more chibi and cute than I normally do. It was on accident but I thought he was too cute to go back and make him more on-model.

October: [x]

I was supposed to do an Andy version of Inktober but I guess the extreme amount of Andy pictures was a September thing because I burned out relatively quickly. I had some drama involving a prototype disc and also ended up having to pay way too much extra money every month until further notice but it’s a relatively calm month all things considering. The way I drew Andy in this art isn’t particularly stellar, but I love what I did with Red’s mouth and nose. I wanted to show that the way I draw Red improved too.

November: [x]

My chronic pain gets worse for no good reason, I get a very disturbing creeper threatening me online, and I’m generally depressed, but I’m drawing. That’s good. I start a new revolutionary technique when I rely almost entirely on the cinematics as reference and don’t reference other cartoon styles whenever I can when it comes to drawing Andy. I enjoy the result. Drawing him in a cute penguin-themed suit made my day. It was so hard to decide which one to pick this month. I loved so many of them.

December: [x]

Like November, but somewhat better I think. I’m still drawing Andy a lot, with Red coming along for the ride too. This one I tried to draw Andy in a more Disney-like style. I love how I did his face and freckles. The drawing of Whisky from the same post is great too. I look at a lot of my newer drawings and feel genuinely pleased with the result. I think I actually am improving, and whilst I think it is due a lot to getting sai and a tablet, it can also be because I’m becoming more skilled and getting more practice as well. Lets hope the new year brings us smooth sailing, lots of fun, and happy times our way. HoD will be 20 in 2018 and I’m ready to bring the subject of my love and joy a great two decade celebration.

#summary of art #2017 summary of art #my art #long post

[vanillatwilight17]

A New Beginning (Chapter 7)

Disclaimer: I own nothing

A/N: Thank you for all the awesome reviews I got on the last chapter. Special shout out to kmomof4 for her amazing reviews of the whole story! It's Christmas in July for this chapter! I hope you enjoy and please review to let me know what you think!

Chapter 7: The Most Magical Time of the Year

Christmastime was in the air in Storybrooke, Main and it seemed like everyone was floating around on clouds completely immersed in the holiday spirit. At seven months pregnant Emma was now fairly large in the stomach area and tired very easily and perhaps as much as Killian wanted her to she hadn't let it slow her down any. They had just this morning resolved the issue of when she was going to stop working.

"You said you were going to take some time during Henry's school break to spend with him before the baby comes right?" Killian had asked that morning after they had gotten into the station and were getting their day started.

"Yea…" Emma said wondering where this was going.

"Well I was thinking that maybe you should let that be the start of your maternity leave as well."

"Huh? Did you get into the rum last night while I was sleeping?" Emma asked him. David put down the file folder he was looking over and relaxed back in his chair.

"This is going to be good." He said.

"You stay out of this!" Emma said pointing her finger at him causing David to throw his hands up.

"Well you were going to need to stop work eventually right?"

"Yea but not with two months still to go before the baby is born! What am I supposed to do for two months? Sit home and knit?" Emma asked frustrated at her husband.

"You know how to knit?" Killian asked.

"Figure of speech!" David whispered to his son in law causing Emma to shoot him a death glare.

"Killian, I'm pregnant not sick or handicapped. I'm not going to break so stop treating me like a piece of glass."

"You are my one true love and you are carrying my child! Damn right I'm going to do everything to protect you both now and for always! I know you aren't going to break but you need to slow down a little! As the due date gets closer I think we just need to start planning a little for these things you know?" Killian said.

"Dad!" Emma said turning to David.

"I thought you wanted me to stay out of it?"

"Well now I want you in it. He's saying nice things and making me want to cave." Killian let out his famous pirates grin on that one.

"I think…you two should compromise." David said.

"What a copout answer you are supposed to take my side!" Emma said.

"I had this same argument with your mother around this time when she was pregnant with you and your brother. I agree with both of you. Emma you need to start slowing down a bit, I know you may feel like you can still go one hundred miles per hour but the more this pregnancy progresses your body is going to be more susceptible to stress. You were born a week early because of it. Killian, I understand you completely as I have been in your shoes, with every day you are going to worry abut them more and more but believe me when I say she's not going to break." David said.

"Fine, how about this? When I come back from time off with Henry I will be strictly on desk duty and then once February rolls around and we are in the home stretch I'll take it on a day to day basis." Emma said.

"Second week of February you go on maternity leave an take the time at home to prepare for the baby." Killian said. The two had a stare down and David found his eyes going back and forth like watching a tennis match.

"Fine." Emma said returning to her work and Killian got up and went over to her and gave her a big hug and kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you love! I love you more than anything you know that?" Killian said.

"I wouldn't push it mister." Emma said.

"Right, then, back to work I go." He said walking back to his desk.

"Killian,"

"Yes?"

"I love you too." Emma said smiling at her husband who returned the gesture.

"Ok there are way too many of us, if we give presents to everybody we are all gonna be in the poorhouse." Regina said as she, Emma, Snow, Zelena, and Belle planned for their big holiday get together one evening at Snow's house.

"Agreed. So how do we want to handle this?" Snow said.

"We could do Secret Santa." Emma said.

"What is Secret Santa?" Zelena asked.

"So typically there is a hat or a bag and everyone who is going to be in the gift exchange puts their name in and you take turns drawing names and whosever name you get you buy a gift for that person. Everyone gets a gift but it saves a you a lot of money." Emma said.

"I love that idea!" Belle said.

"Agreed!" Snow said and the others nodded their heads.

"Ok there are basic rules to it, like you can't get your own name, you can't say who you have because then it's not a secret anymore and once one person says who they have it becomes this domino effect of process of elimination of who has who and the fun is gone."

"I say a fifty dollar limit on the gift. Anyone object?" Regina offered and everyone agreed.

"What about the kids?" Snow asked.

"I say the kids are fair game, I feel like Henry will want to participate though so we can put his name in and let him pick. In immediate family's what you choose to do for actual Christmas Day is up to you. I was planning on getting Killian and my parents something for instance and obviously "Santa" is coming to see Henry." Emma said.

"Aww Henry still believes in Santa?" Belle asked.

"If it's out there, Henry believes in it. I think he knows the truth but I enjoy that he still goes along with it." Emma said.

"Soon you will have another a little one at Christmas and that is the best!" Snow said rubbing her daughter's belly.

"Ok so when we pull names, you can't get yourself, you can't get anyone in your immediate family, and you can't say who you got." Zelena offered as official rules and everyone agreed. They met everyone at Granny's that evening and names were pulled to yield the following results. It was decided that since Red was off with Dorothy in Oz Granny would be invited to their family get together. After several times needing to redraw everyone ended up with a Secret Santa. Everyone also got a good laugh out of people's reactions to who they got.

Emma = Regina "Ok that's not so bad!"

Killian = Granny "Oh bloody hell!"

David = Zelena "This will be…interesting."

Snow = Belle "Oh that's easy!"

Henry = Gold "Probably good I got this one."

Regina = Snow "I would pull that one."

Zelena = Henry "Thank God!"

Belle = David "How exciting!"

Gold = Emma "Why me?"

Granny = Killian "Well this will be cheap and easy, got the perfect present in the back!"

"I give it two days until everyone knows who has who." Granny said.

"What's the fun in that? Everyone keep your secret! We will exchange gifts and have dinner Christmas Eve at my house!" Snow said.

"We're going to be spending the night afterwards as well." Emma said.

"Really?" David asked excitedly.

"Yea, we talked about it a few days ago. That way we can just be there for Christmas morning and stuff." Emma said.

"Do you want me to take you over there after you open your presents?" Regina asked Henry.

"Actually I was just going to stay there with them and then come to your house later, unless that's not ok." Henry asked. Emma silently kicked herself, she should have talked to Regina first before she made these plans.

"Oh…that's fine. Just let me know when you are headed over." Regina said smiling but obviously a bit crushed at not being with her son first thing Christmas morning.

Later that evening Emma sat down in front of Killian who was reading a pregnancy book on the couch.

"Ok so I got Regina." Emma said.

"I think you missed the point of Secret Santa love." Killian said putting down the book.

"No I'm telling you because I need to talk to you about what I want to give her because it involves you too." Emma said as Killian grabbed her feet and started giving her a foot massage.

"Now I'm frightened." He said.

"I wanted to ask her, if it's alright with you that is, to be the baby's godmother." Emma said.

"The irony of the Evil Queen being godmother to Snow White's grandchild is beyond anything imaginable." Killian said.

"I'm aware of that but besides you and my parents she is my best friend." Emma said.

"I feel like there is more to it then that. I saw the face you made when Henry announced his plans for Christmas morning earlier."

"Ever since I came back into his life and the first curse broke Henry has drifted more towards us and while he and Regina have a great relationship I can tell she misses him and the days she had him to herself terribly."

"Henry isn't a child anymore love, he makes his own decision about where he wants to spend his time. Albeit when he started calling me dad I could tell it bothered her a bit." Killian said.

"Now that there is a new baby coming, one that is going to be his sibling none the less I feel like he will gravitate this way more and more. So I want her to have a special role in the baby's life and feel included. She spent so much time shut out from the family…"

"Her own doing…"Killian reminded her.

"Agreed by her own doing but she's done the hardest thing anyone can do, you should know this, she changed. So what do you think?"

"I think…it is a great idea." Killian said smiling. "How do you plan to give it in a gift though?"

"I was thinking something similar to how I told you about little one here," Emma said placing her hand on her stomach.

"Regina doesn't strike me as the pocket watch type." He said laughing.

"I was thinking more like a locket or something." Emma said swatting at his leg.

"Sounds good to me love." Killian said leaning over to kiss his wife on the lips.

Soon enough presents were bought and wrapped and it was Christmas Eve. When Emma and Killian walked into Snow's house that afternoon they found her mother and Granny hard at work in the kitchen.

"Hey Mom! We're here! Need any help?" Emma said as they walked into the kitchen.

"Hi Sweetie!" Her mom yelled back. "No I think we got this covered you just relax. Where is Henry?" Snow asked as Emma walked over to hug her mother.

"He was with Regina last night so I could wrap all his presents so she's bringing him with them. Spoiled turd!" Emma said.

"That's what kids are for!" Granny said and David and Neal came in the kitchen.

"Emmy, Emmy!" Neal said running to his sister as Emma bent down to pick him up.

"Hey buddy!" Emma said giving her brother a hug.

"Is Santa coming tonight?" She asked him.

"Yes!" He said excited. "Baby come?" He asked pointing to her stomach.

"No, baby isn't coming yet, soon though. It's getting hard for me to hold you right now Bud," Emma said and Killian reached over to take him from her.

"Killy!" The little boy said.

"Were you a good little lad this year?" he asked him

"Yes!" Neal answered.

"Good, because Santa only brings toys to good lads!" Killian said.

"I good lad!" Neal announced causing everyone to laugh.

"That's good. David could you help me bring these presents in from the car. We need to stash some down in the basement so this guy and the one coming later don't see them until tomorrow." Killian said.

"Sure thing!" David said.

The evening progressed and people started to arrive and the tree became almost hidden behind all the presents. Dinner was incredible and after everyone had finished eating the kids declared it was time to open presents. They let the kids open their gifts first since they couldn't wait any longer. Soon Robin, Neal, and Gideon had so many new toys they didn't know what to do with themselves.

"And Santa hasn't even come yet!" Belle said looking at how loved all the children were. Henry got gifts from his grandfather and Granny as well but was told he would have to wait until tomorrow for his other gifts. Gold gave Henry an orb that would change color depending on the weather, his mood, moods of other's around him.

"That better be all that thing does Gold." Regina and Emma said not trusting the Dark One.

"I'd never hurt my grandson ladies, don't worry!" Gold said. After the kids opened their presents it was time for Secret Santa. Killian and Granny laughed that they had each other. Killian had gotten Granny a new set of pots and pans as hers were getting old and rusted and she had given him a bottle of rum and a monogramed flask.

"You know me so well Granny." Killian said. David got Zelena tickets to go see Wicked on Broadway and he was surpised to find she loved the idea.

"I've been dying to see how those bastards depict me this time."

"You're actually a good guy, Mom took to me see that play a while back." Henry said and the gifts continued to be exchanged.

"It appears it's my turn." Gold said getting up to grab his gift.

"Mrs. Jones." He said handing the wrapped present to Emma.

"Oh God." Emma said not sure how to feel.

"Relax, it's nothing magical. It's more…sentimental. Something I found lying around my shop that I believe once belonged to you, that I thought you might want for your child." Gold said. Emma unwrapped the box and opened it to find a glass unicorn mobile inside causing Snow to instantly burst into tears.

"Oh Emma that's the mobile from your nursery!" She said. Emma looked down at the gift and felt speechless.

"Gold I don't know what to say…thank you." She said. Perhaps the man really did have a heart in there somewhere after all.

"It seemed only right you should have it." He said as Belle put her arm around him and smiled. The person to give her gift was Emma who reached over and grabbed a small box and handed it to Regina.

"Saved the best for last!" Emma said nervous at Regina's reaction to her gift as she opened the box to reveal a locket.

"Thank you Emma it's beautiful." Regina said.

"Open it." Emma urged. On one side of the locket was a picture of Regina and Henry and underneath inscribed the word 'mother.' On the other side was a picture of the baby from the 3D ultrasound they did with the word 'godmother' inscribed underneath.

"Emma…"Regina said looking from Emma to Killian.

"Regina, you have been a huge pain in the ass but you have also always been there for me when I needed you. You are my best friend and an incredible mother to Henry and it would be our honor if you would be our baby's godmother." Emma said. She barely got the words out before Regina was across the room with her arms wrapped around her.

"Of course! I would love to be the baby's godmother! You have no idea what this means to me. Thank you guys so much!" She said then turning to hug Killian.

At the end of the evening everyone had gone home except Emma, Killian, and Henry. Cookies were put out for Santa and everyone sat down so David could read The Night Before Christmas before everyone went to bed. The next morning there were even more presents than the night before surrounding the tree and Henry and Neal were anxious to get started unwrapping.

"Hold on guys, let me get the camera!" Snow said before they started. Killian had gotten Emma a beautiful necklace with a heart that had two stones in it, an aquamarine for March when Henry was born and an Amethyst for February when their baby would be born. She had gotten him a new ring with the same two stones in it and they laughed at how similar their minds worked. Henry was thrilled when he opened his new Nintendo Switch.

"Thank you guys!" He said running over to hug his parents.

"You're welcome kid!" Emma said hugging him back. "Ok guys hold on, I have a special gift for you!" She said to her parents and she went and grabbed a box. This is something I have been working on for awhile now and I finally got it done!" She said handing them the box.

"It's for both of us?" Snow asked and Emma nodded and Killian put his arm around his wife knowing what the gift was.

"How long before she cries?" He asked.

"Second page max," Emma said and her parents opened the box to find a scrapbook.

"So I don't have a lot of stuff but this is everything I held on to or was given by my foster parents or the system when I aged out." Emma said. It was a scrapbook detailing in pictures, art work, school work, etc. her childhood. Snow didn't even make it to the second page before she was absolutely in tears.

"Emma you have no idea what this means to your father and I to have this. We missed so much with you and now we have a glimpse into your childhood and a chance to have some of those memories back. I promise that we will be here for you from this moment until our last days. You are an incredible mother to Henry and this new baby is going to be so lucky to call you Mommy." Snow said hugging her daughter. Emma looked over to see her father also in tears looking at pictures of his baby girl.

"Come here Daddy," She said and he came over and kissed the top of her head holding her close to him.

"I love you Em," He said.

"I love you too Daddy." She said back.

After they had dropped Henry off at Regina's and carted all their stuff inside Emma and Killian sat down together for a few quiet moments.

"Merry Christmas love," He said to her, kissing her softly.

"Merry Christmas Killian."

"Merry Christmas baby." They both said to her stomach where their hands entwined.

"Next Christmas we will have an almost one year old." Emma said.

"That's hard to even wrap my head around at the moment." Killian said.

"I know I can't even grasp that soon the baby will be here let alone what our lives will look like in a year," Emma said. "I have one more present for you though." She pulled out a small box she had been stashing. Inside was a small ornament for the tree that showed a man, woman, and boy, the woman with a swollen belly and man with his arms around her, that said: Killian, Emma, and Henry on the top then Jones Family Christmas 2017.

"I figured every year we could get a special ornament like this and it could be like a milestone for the year." Emma said.

"I love it Emma. However, you have already given me the greatest gift of all in the form of you, Henry, and this little one right here." Killian said and he leaned in to kiss her one more time and they relaxed on the couch, watching the fire in the fireplace enjoying some of their last few moments together before the baby arrived.

"Merry Christmas to all." Emma said.

"And to all a good night." Killian said back.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed. The baby will be here in either the next chapter or the chapter after that at the latest I haven't totally decided yet. Any guess on boy or girl? Please review and let me know what you think!

#cs ff #cs family ff #cs baby ff #daddy killian #pregnant emma #emma jones #emma swan #killian jones #captain swan #ouat ff #ouat

[mikemortgage]

New Pakistan Prime Minister — Imran Khan — goes to bat for his country

The golden age of populists has a new rising star: Imran Khan.

The 65-year-old Pakistani cricketer-turned-hardline-reformer joins a glittering cast of strongmen led by Donald Trump, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi redrawing the global order.

But Khan, Pakistan’s prime minister in waiting, may have the toughest challenge, reversing the South Asian nation’s economic fortunes, after his party controversially won the national election in July.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party did not win an outright majority amid complaints of rigging by the two main political parties, but his brand of populism, tinged with nationalism, and Naya (new) Pakistan slogan has energized the despairing middle class and educated youth tired of the status quo, especially since neighbouring India has prospered in recent years

He has also brought a focus on tackling corruption and security — foreign investors’ biggest irritants — that, at least on paper, promises the nuclear-armed state of 207 million people will be the next economic dynamo, but it has repeatedly stumbled and lost its way in the past.

A Pakistani takes a selfie with Imran Khan, centre, head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, as he leaves a party meeting in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. The party won the most parliament seats in July’s general elections and is expected to form a governing coalition later this month.

“Pakistanis are hoping against hope that somebody is going to bring about change,” said Ayesha Jalal, a Pakistani historian and professor of history at Medford, Mass.-based Tufts University, who was in Lahore during the elections. “But I do think despite all the things Imran wants to do, there is a feeling that we may be in a scenario where much of the ‘Naya’ Pakistan may be a bit like the old Pakistan — more of the same.”

There may be some similarities between Khan and India Prime Minister Modi, but Pakistan is no India, its separated-at-birth neighbour that has blossomed into a US$2.2-trillion economic powerhouse, while Pakistan’s stunted economy of roughly US$300 billion has long been infested by a corrupt political regime that’s failed to provide basic necessities to its citizens.

Yet the country holds promise.

Goldman Sachs, which coined the famous BRIC acronym, puts Pakistan as one of the Next Eleven set of countries —alongside the likes of Vietnam, Nigeria and Mexico — that may become among the largest economies in the world this century.

Hope also springs eternal despite broken promises by a long list of Muslim countries that have tried to modernize, only to stumble and return to their old ways.

“The Turkish, Bangladeshi, and Egyptian examples have many lessons for Imran Khan as he begins to run Pakistan,” said Shahid Javed Burki, a former World Bank vice-president and a relative of Khan, who calls his victory a “game changer” for the country.

Poverty levels are high, but around 120 million people — or roughly the population of Japan — constitute an aspirational, young middle-class that present a ready consumer market that is fluent in English.

All of which makes Pakistan, located near the giant markets of China, India and the Gulf States, an enticing would-be investment destination and trading partner, if Khan can ever manage to get the house in order.

Who is Khan?

It may be too early for Modi and Trump comparisons, but Khan appears to be on the same trajectory as those two leaders.

An outsider, who put the established political parties under siege for the past few years, Khan holds strongly conservative views that have made many progressives uneasy. And, as the world’s eighth-most-followed political leader on Twitter, he has used social media as an effective weapon to mobilize an army of followers.

But there are also millions of Never Khaners.

“I don’t know if he will be good for the country, but he adds to the confusion in the narrative,” says Beena Sarwar, a journalist and activist who teaches journalism at Emerson College in Boston. “He is a polarizing force, like Modi and Trump. They do not discourage their followers from taking up divisive positions and abusing or attacking those who disagree with them.”

Michael Kugelman, an analyst at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., said in a video podcast he disagrees with the comparisons to Trump, but Khan “does project himself as a new face representing the real interests of the people … He is a populist.”

Part of Khan’s appeal is his past. The one-time playboy became the cricket-mad nation’s favourite son in 1992 when he led a young team to an unlikely World Cup victory. On the verge of near-certain elimination, the captain took to wearing a T-shirt with a ferocious tiger illustration on it, as he strong-willed his unruly team to play like “cornered tigers.” The resulting win became folklore in the country.

Pakistan’s cricket captain, Imran Khan, waving a Pakistan flag, is cheered by his teammates after Pakistan defeated England in the World Cup Cricket final, in Melbourne, Australia in March 1992.

“As a cricket hero, he united the country, but as a politician, he is very polarizing,” Kugelman said. “He is a cult of personality and people are really attracted to him because of his charisma, but there are a lot of people in Pakistan who hate him. They think he has a soft spot for terror, are very much against some of his views towards women, some do not think he is very smart.”

Also, though Khan’s cricket cabinet is brimming with trophies, his political resume is thin: he established a mostly free cancer hospital in memory of his mother, and he has doggedly fought the political establishment for the past 22 years by tapping into the youth vote — mostly middle-class, educated and urban — who retweeted and shared his gospel of change, and the dream of a Muslim welfare state.

But the Oxford-graduate also generates a strong visceral reaction from progressives who don’t believe his come-back-to-Islam spiel.

Imran Khan and London socialite Gemima Goldsmith on their wedding day in 1995.

The arc of Khan’s adult life begins as a tearaway fast bowler, a Don Juan on the London social scene who eventually became close friends with the late Princess Diana. His series of affairs with the ladies of London’s high society culminated in a marriage to Jemima Goldsmith, daughter of London financier Sir James Goldsmith.

But Khan turned his back on his Western lifestyle, amicably divorcing Goldsmith, and reinvented himself as a born-again Muslim espousing conservative views that grew ever more orthodox.

A disastrous second marriage lasted 10 months, with his ex writing a scandalous biography weeks before the 2018 elections that revealed lurid details about his sex life and alleged drug use.

His third marriage to a fully veiled spiritual leader, confirmed to his critics that he is no reformer, but part of the orthodoxy that’s weighing down the country.

What now?

Khan has pledged to target economic growth of six per cent over the next five years, create two million jobs each year, cut taxes, overhaul basic services and crack down on corruption. But his first order of business when he assumes office this week will be to stabilize the economy.

“We have to escape this economic crisis,” he said during a slightly premature victory speech in late July while votes were still being counted. “No one is coming to save us.”

Ill-conceived economic policies in the past have brought Pakistan to the brink of many fiscal disasters and bailouts. It needs another one now, of between US$6-12 billion.

“Pakistan urgently needs another IMF arrangement to boost its international reserves, which have declined to critical levels (equivalent to less than two months of import coverage),” Garbis Iradian, head of Middle East and North Africa research at the Institute of International Finance, said by email.

Imran Khan and the late Princess Diana were close friends.

Iradian believes foreign investors will welcome any economic reforms that the new cabinet would likely implement in the context of a new IMF arrangement. Khan’s government has already held talks with the Asian Development Bank, Chinese and Saudis for assistance.

Vaqar Ahmed, deputy executive director at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad, said the economy is going to be task No. 1.

“But Khan ran on throwing away the begging bowl — how do you change that narrative? There might have to be some belt-tightening on the horizon.”

Despite the upheavals, the country’s investment profile has improved. Last year, index provider MSCI upgraded the Pakistan Stock Exchange to emerging market status, a move that caught the eye of investment guru Mark Mobius, who had initially been skeptical.

“There have been a number of recent positive changes ensuring Pakistan’s public equity markets have been able to continuously operate with no closures/suspensions of the local exchange,” Mobius said in an email exchange. “The increasing market cap has also enabled index providers to re-categorize Pakistan. The size of the population and economy justifies an upgrade.”

The country’s untapped potential has also lured Montreal native Richard Morin to head the Pakistan Stock Exchange and boost its international and domestic profile.

Morin, who once worked at the Montreal Stock Exchange and at a unit of National Bank Financial Group, said he lives a “privileged” life in Pakistan, complete with security staff, and enjoys a strong social network, playing golf, sailing and hiking.

“My impression of Pakistan is very positive,” he said during a phone interview from Karachi. “And the challenge to turn around and develop this capital market is really exciting. We have got very positive signals from the incoming government.”

Morin, who also ran the Mauritius Stock Exchange, said he plans to bring in exchange-traded funds, index and stock options to attract institutions to the PSX.

“Foreign investors are quite active on Pakistan’s market,” he said. “Many of them have been investing in Pakistan for a number of years and have done extremely well.”

PSX was among the world’s best-performing markets in 2016, but much of those gains were lost in 2017 amid political turmoil and currency devaluation. The market has risen since Khan’s election on hopes the new government will inject confidence in the economy.

But Mobius cautions a tough road lies ahead.

“Given Pakistan’s strong opposition parties, there are doubts if the new government will be able to implement real and long-lasting reforms,” he said.

Pakistani opposition leader Maulana Fazalur Rehman, right, and Shahbaz Sharif, left, the younger brother of ousted Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif and head of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), attend an All Parties Conference in Islamabad on July 27, where a group of political parties announced a protest demanding new elections following allegations of rigging in the nationwide polls that were won by cricket hero Imran Khan’s party.

For the most part, Western nations have largely ignored Pakistan’s potential because of security concerns.

For example, Canada, which is seeking new markets, currently has around a $1-billion trade relationship with Pakistan.

“From Canada, there has been expressions of interest in the dairy sector, construction and pharmaceuticals, but in terms of numbers, it’s minuscule,” Ahmed said.

But China has opened its chequebook. It is building a mammoth China-Pakistan Economic Corridor that cuts across the length of the country, connecting China to the Indian Ocean — a controversial project that many feel tramples all over Pakistan’s sovereignty.

The US$62-billion development, part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, culminates at a deep-sea port in the south, connecting China to Middle Eastern and African markets, away from the threat of the U.S. Navy.

Khan’s economic plan includes targeting wealth funds from China and the Middle East for investments in energy, minerals and infrastructure, and privatizing state assets. But the army, which still calls the shots on foreign policy, may thwart his overtures to India and the U.S.

“While the PTI victory is undeniable, it’s not a victory that translates into solid governance and that’s the No. 1 question in Pakistan,” Tufts University professor Jalal said.

The one thing even Khan’s harshest critics may concede is his stubbornness, or arrogance, to take it upon himself to do the improbable.

“We really have been through the fire,” Khan said at the start of the 1992 World Cup final, donning the by-then famous tiger-emblazoned T-shirt, before going on to trounce England. “It looked like we were knocked out and to have come back from that has given me the greatest pleasure and satisfaction.”

He might need to start wearing that T-shirt again.

[email protected]

Financial Post

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[cryptnus-blog]

Richard Branson Faces Hard Realities Of Building A Borderless World

New Post has been published on https://cryptnus.com/2018/07/richard-branson-faces-hard-realities-of-building-a-borderless-world/

Richard Branson Faces Hard Realities Of Building A Borderless World

Richard Branson discusses the role of blockchain in a larger context of breaking down global borders at the Blockchain Summit 2018, hosted by Bitfury Group.Bitfury

The fourth annual Blockchain Summit took place at billionaire Richard Branson’s Kasbah Tamadot resort in Marrakesh Morocco. It was early July, the summer sky was crystal blue, but as some of the world’s most successful blockchain entrepreneurs mixed and mingled with government bureaucrats and former high-level financial regulators, heavy geopolitical storm clouds began to move in. 

Earlier in the day, two of the most powerful people working to extricate Great Britain from the European Union, a process known as Brexit, had resigned their positions, leaving the nation’s embattled nationalist Prime Minister, Theresa May, in the vulnerable position of having to execute the controversial separation largely unprotected.

Rumors began to circulate at the exclusive gathering that the entire Brexit process could be reset, or that May herself might soon be out of power. Small groups gathered around the resort to discuss what the change could mean for their businesses, and their nations.

One of the attendees, Greece European Parliament member Eva Kaili helped organize an impromptu conversation between Branson and the former Prime Minister of Belgium, Guy Verhofstadt, who is now helping oversee the Brexit process on behalf of the European Parliament.

While the subject matter of the conversation itself was deemed off-the-record by the event’s organizers, Branson shed further light on the exchange in an exclusive interview the following day. The man whose Virgin companies generate a collective $20 billion revenue shared not only how his blockchain investments are helping break down borders, but how lessons from the past and his own personal preparations for the future are changing his world view.

“As I said last night, we’ve got to go back to why [the European Union] was set up,” Branson said, speaking in the Kanoun dining room of his Morocco retreat. “Europe was set up to create a borderless society where people could love, marry, party, dance together, and it would be too sad to see it go back the other way.”

The exchange between Branson and Verhofstadt was triggered by the resignations of Britain’s now-former foreign secretary Boris Johnson, and the unofficial “Brexit minister,” David Davis, who helped champion Britain’s departure from the European Union. As Britain is working to separate itself from Europe and the United States is planning to build a wall along its Southern border, Branson has been pursuing a multi-pronged effort to connect nations and economies.

As far back as 2014 Branson was among the first wave of mainstream investors to back a bitcoin startup when he participated in a $30 million Series A to fund BitPay, an early bitcoin company that helps customers send money across borders and now processes more than $3 billion in transactions per month. Then, in June 2017, London-based cryptocurrency wallet Blockchain, Inc. announced that Branson had participated in a $40 million Series B and the following month, the company added European support via a partnership with Denmark-based Coinify.

While a representative of Blockchain says Brexit has yet to impact the company’s daily business operations, the firm is also part of a larger trend of UK-based companies opening offices in Luxembourg, a capital of the European Union, as a way to simplify doing business in the region. Following a similar trajectory, some of the startups represented at Branson’s annual blockchain soiree are more ruffled by Brexit. 

For example, Kenya-based BitPesa was originally founded in 2013 to serve as a bridge between bitcoin and mobile minutes widely used in the nation as a form of currency. Two years later, the company became the first bitcoin payments firm to receive a license from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and through a process known as “passporting” evolved into one of the first licensed bitcoin startups to do business in Europe.

But with the looming split between the UK and Europe, BitPesa founder and Blockchain Summit attendee, Elizabeth Rossiello, also moved her headquarters to Luxembourg and was forced to purchase Madrid-based Transfer Zero, to obtain a European license. “If a small growing startup is facing this cost it must be huge for the whole industry,” said Rossiello, speaking in conversation following the Branson-Verhofstadt exchange. “You have to duplicate your corporate governance structure. If you happen to have the UK as your base, you have to have a whole other base.”

In fact, contrary to claims from Boris Johnson that the European Union destroyed jobs in the United Kingdom and that leaving the union would have a positive impact on the nation’s economy, Branson cited recent GDP numbers as evidence that the opposite is true. As of June 29, UK economic growth was actually lower than pre-Brexit referendum levels.

Image from Moody’s June 2018 “Brexit Monitor” report.Moody’s

“If you’re lucky enough to have made a lot of money through creating a borderless society and advocating a borderless society, it is highly hypocritical if you then want to build walls,” Branson said, describing not himself, but other blockchain entrepreneurs. Going a step further, he then described those who seek to return European borders to pre-World War II conditions as “xenophobic.”

“You have to think, what is it that they don’t want in their country? Most likely, they don’t want someone with a different colored skin, that speaks slightly differently when they come into the country,” said Branson. “But all of us come from somewhere in this world.”

It is this interconnectedness of the global economy that another participant of the Blockchain Summit thinks is central to blockchain’s ability to do more than just break down borders. Following the Branson-Verhofstadt conversation, summit co-host and co-founder of blockchain startup Bitfury, Valery Vavilov, explained how he thinks the nature of competition itself could eventually be undone.

A native of Latvia, who co-founded San Francisco-based Bitfury in 2011, Vavilov takes a more philosophical approach to the impact of tokenizing the world’s assets and trading them on a shared, distributed ledger. By giving all the users of the blockchain a vested interest in that system’s success, Vavilov argues that bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies incentivize people to cooperate for the success of that system. Instead of competing to make improvements, Vavilov predicts that participants in a blockchain-enabled global economy will collaborate.

“The most interesting thing, the most powerful thing is we will not compete with each other,” Vavilov said. “This technology will allow you to launch economies, but collaborate, where everyone is incentivised to grow the economy, to push the economy.”

Beyond Branson’s own personal blockchain investments and the support he lends to the Blockchain Summit each year, the Virgin founder highlighted the work of economist Hernando de Soto as among his favorite applications of blockchain. Having first risen to international prominence for helping fight drug dealers in Peru by giving farmers legal rights to the land they cultivated, de Soto is currently working on a project to tokenize the untapped resources beneath the surface of the earth, so that the assets can be traded on the global market.

“The best way of pulling people out of poverty is for somebody, a government or the local councils, to go around giving everybody a plot of land, legalizing it,” said Branson. “The best way of making sure that that is registered is blockchain.”

De Soto himself met Branson in May 2010 at the billionaire’s private safari game reserve in Ulusaba, South Africa, where the duo also spent time with former South African president Nelson Mandela and the former archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, Desmond Tutu. De Soto distinguishes himself from blockchain builders in the developed world, as coming from “the other side of the wall,” in reference to the barrier now being constructed between the United States and Mexico.

Unlike some of his more ardent free-market supporters, De Soto downplays the historical significance of the recent rise of nationalism, placing it in a larger cycle of creating and destroying borders. He describes the current socio-political climate as part of the beginning of a larger process whereby global transactions conducted on a shared, distributed ledger lead to smaller, but “better connected” fiefdoms.

“The way I see it, this goes back and forth. It’s a reflex,” said de Soto. “Obviously whatever we did from Bretton Woods on ain’t working and people are redrawing those borders.”

Or, if Branson has anything to say about it, perhaps removing the borders altogether.

Beyond blockchain, Branson has been working to break down borders in other ways as well. Last week, he rejoined Desmond Tutu along with former US President Barack Obama at Mandela’s 100th birthday celebration and has been tweeting under the #WalkTogether hashtag aimed at drawing attention to civil society networks that connect communities around the world.

If Branson’s burst of work to break down borders seems sudden, it’s perhaps not without reason.

In addition to his work with cryptocurrency wallets, blockchain supply chains and civil society networks, Branson is in the rare position of having regular access to a number of astronauts in the final stages of helping his company, Virgin Galactic, prepare for its first commercial flight to space.

While the exact date of the launch is a closely kept secret, Branson teased the impact the launch is having on his view of the world. “We’re going to be sending people to space very soon now, and with almost one voice, what almost all astronauts say, is that what they notice the most about the world is that it is one world,” he said.

“Bob Marley got it right,” he concluded, referring to the musician’s 1977 hit One Love. “It looks like a borderless world, it should be a borderless world, and I think blockchain can really contribute to making the world a borderless world.”