art and gamedev

Equiping an armor tutorial

Do you design a lot of characters living in not-modern eras and you’re tired of combing through google for the perfect outfit references? Well I got good news for you kiddo, this website has you covered! Originally @modmad made a post about it, but her link stopped working and I managed to fix it, so here’s a new post. Basically, this is a costume rental website for plays and stage shows and what not, they have outfits for several different decades from medieval to the 1980s. LOOK AT THIS SELECTION:

OPEN ANY CATEGORY AND OH LORDY–

since ive been asked a few times i shall make a dedicated post about it regarding putting gills on a human/humanoid there are two types of setups bony fish have 1 gill opening, sharks have multiple gills in blue here

for gills on a humanoid to be realistic they need to be between the neck muscles and the hyoid muscles, like in real fish the red are the beck muscles, green are throat muscles, and blue are areas you could feasibly put gills! using shark here as they take up more space

instead of gill musculature bony fish have a large bony shield called an operculum covering their gills, but the principle remains the same gills are between the back muscles and the throat muscles, though with bony fish you can make the covering just fleshy if you want

here is it all together again as the two main muscles the cucullaris evolve into present in humans are the trapezius and sternocleidomastoid so show how this muscles evolved in sharks its this trapezius-like structure but in bony fish since the shoulder bones are connected to the skull the cucullaris helps move that joint!

this muscle has roots in out placoderm ancestors and can be seen in placoderms like dunkleosteus! here this paper

in placoderms it also helps articulate the head and shoulder bones

1. The FBI's Famous Cases & Criminals archive (fbi.gov/history/famous-cases) has detailed breakdowns of real fraud cases, Ponzi schemes, and confidence operations. The language they use is clinical and precise, which is perfect for getting the procedural details right.

2. The FTC Consumer Sentinel Network publishes annual reports on the most common fraud tactics in the US. Great for understanding how modern scams actually work and what makes people fall for them.

3. The Smithsonian's American Art Museum has a free digital collection of forgery case studies. If your character forges documents or art, this is gold.

4. Court Listener (courtlistener.com) is a free legal database where you can read actual court transcripts from fraud trials. Want to know how a real con artist talks under oath? This is where you find out.

5. The Internet Archive's collection of old newspaper crime sections. Search for "confidence man" or "swindle" in papers from the 1920s through 1960s and you'll find incredible real stories that would feel too dramatic for fiction.

Bonus: The Psychology of Fraud section on the Association for Psychological Science website has accessible articles about why people trust, how deception works cognitively, and what makes someone a convincing liar. Essential reading if you want your con artist characters to feel psychologically real.

I'm not sure what exactly your workflow is, but yes I think it would be helpful, that one in particular is by Carbs, here is a video on how it works!

surgeonsblog

article i found this from^ (w/even more resources)

redwoods medical edge

^article where i found that

this article is short/basic/doesn’t link anywhere else, but i found it very helpful anyway

supposed to be good but to me, seemed difficult to navigate. (dp lyle)

this on the otherhand, is the jackpot (novelmalpractice)

tumblr blog centered around this topic

this is more about the common pitfalls/anachronisms of medical fiction but still helpful

writing medical scenes: useful links by paul anthony shortt

the last one im going to include is an article by a doctor about common mistakes in popular medical shows, i liked this one

Final Fantasy IV Prestory Comics

Been practising my BG skills lately! process pics under the cut

This post has been a long time coming. In spring 2020, I posted two of the most popular posts on this blog:

Reading Chinese Names: Female Names

Reading Chinese Names: Male Names

More recently I have wanted to revisit the idea behind those posts but with a different, more in-depth approach. I also made some decisions while compiling data for those posts that I now regret. So in late summer 2021, I set out to completely redo my data collection with the eventual goal of creating this very post.

About the Data

I will include more information about my data collection process at the end of this post for those interested.

I gathered 3,277 names (1602 male, 1675 female) from idol shows and groups. In the grand scheme of things, this is not a lot of names at all. But I think it’s enough that we can explore names, observe some generalities, and have fun! These names belong to individuals roughly 15-30 years old. Most names belong to individuals from Mainland China, but there are some Hong Konger and Taiwanese names as well.

Some of the name sources include:

偶像练习生/青春有你

创造101/创造营

明日之子

以团之名/少年之名

SNH48

快乐女声/快乐男声

菱格世代DD52

Various groups like 时代少年 and SING女团

I also wanted to note something important: the definitions I am using (via MDBG) are only the surface. For example, a name containing a character meaning jade might also have implications of beauty and virtue. So the meaning is more than just “jade.” However, it just isn’t practical to go into all the nitty gritty here. I encourage you to seek out more resources if you are interested.

Some Thanks

Thanks so much to @liu-anhuaming, @meichenxi, and my friend Tiffany for their help and advice during the process of creating this post! 非常感谢你们，你们是最棒的！

Given Names (Overall)

First let’s look at the most common characters for ALL the given names in the dataset. There were 1093 total unique characters across all the given names. I’m going to include more characters (almost rounding out the top 100) at the bottom of this post for those interested. There is also some information broken down by gender below.

Top Given Name Characters

宇 yǔ - room, universe / 87

子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 82

佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 68

雨 yǔ - rain / 63

嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 59

文 wén - language, culture, writing, formal, literary, gentle / 58

欣 xīn - happy / 55

一 yī - one, 1, single, a (article), as soon as, entire, whole, all, throughout / 51

俊 jùn - smart, eminent, handsome, talented / 51

思 sī - to think, to consider / 49

杰 jié - hero, heroic, outstanding person, prominent, distinguished / 49

豪 háo - grand, heroic / 48

怡 yí - harmony, pleased / 45

天 tiān - day, sky, heaven / 44

泽 zé - pool, pond, (of metals etc) luster, favor or beneficence, damp, moist / 43

琪 qí - fine jade / 40

婷 tíng - graceful / 39

鑫 xīn - prosperity / 38

晓 xiǎo - dawn, daybreak, to know, to let sb know, to make explicit / 35

浩 hào - grand, vast (water) / 35

晨 chén - morning, dawn, daybreak / 34

恩 ēn - favor, grace, kindness / 33

博 bó - extensive, ample, rich, obtain, aim, to win, to get, plentiful / 32

慧 huì - intelligent / 32

明 míng - bright, clear, to understand, wise / 32

轩 xuān - pavilion with a view, high, tall / 32

辰 chén - 5th earthly branch, 3rd solar month, year of the Dragon, ancient Chinese compass point / 32

Top Given Name Characters (Female)

佳 jiā - beautiful, fine, good / 56

雨 yǔ - rain / 50

欣 xīn - happy / 49

怡 yí - harmony, pleased / 44

婷 tíng - graceful / 39

嘉 jiā - excellent, auspicious, to praise, to commend / 37

琪 qí - fine jade / 35

思 sī - to think, to consider / 33

慧 huì - intelligent / 31

梦 mèng - dream, to dream / 30

Top Given Name Characters (Male)

宇 yǔ - room, universe / 68

子 zǐ - son, child, seed, egg, small thing, 1st earthly branch, midnight, 11th solar month, year of the Rat, fourth of five orders of nobility, ancient Chinese compass point / 55

豪 háo - grand, heroic / 48

杰 jié - hero, heroic, outstanding person, prominent, distinguished / 47

俊 jùn - smart, eminent, handsome, talented / 45

泽 zé - pool, pond, (of metals etc) luster, favor or beneficence, damp, moist / 38

浩 hào - grand, vast (water) / 35

一 yī - one, 1, single, a (article), as soon as, entire, whole, all, throughout / 34

文 wén - language, culture, writing, formal, literary, gentle / 32

明 míng - bright, clear, to understand, wise / 27