The Modus Operandi

Tomorrow

I use both equally. Drawing traditionally and digitally has different advantages for me so my process is a little convolutedhere it is:

step 1- do a thumbnail on paper to figure out page layout

2. model the background in maya if there is one

3. printout light version of just bg on my cheap paper. I’m drawing on 11 x 17in

4. sketch over printout

4.5 draw a better drawing if my first attempt sucked then scan that and place it in photoshop

5.get the figure looking acceptable in photoshop. I use a cintiq to draw

I have an easier time drawing digitally if I have an undersketch from a paper drawing. Don’t know why it just helps.

6. turn curves to red and printout on my fancy vellum bristol

7. final lines in pencil ( I’ve tried using real ink but I don’t enjoy it and I hate inking digitally) I ended up not liking how the arms on this panel looked so I fixed them with my red colerase pencil 

8. scan page and get rid of red channel

9. coloring! (bg isn’t finished here)

protea cynaroides

A growing collection of animated Pixel Art Tutorials by Pedro Medeiros (@saint11) of Studio Miniboss (they previously worked on TowerFall and are currently working on Celeste and Skytorn)

All +40 Pixel Art Tutorials can be found on blog.studiominiboss.com/pixelart (10 Pixel Art Tutorials are posted below)

Character Ideas:

Character creation masterpost

Character Alignment Chart

More character alignment descriptions

Muslim Character questions

Characters with magical powers

Building a new character advice

How to create a character for an online or tabletop RPG (also a good guide on creating characters in general)

Royalty/nobility TV Tropes page

Basic character profile

OC masterpost

Random character generators - (1), (2), (3), (4)

D&D Character Building Tool

Character Design Ideas:

How clothing affects a character’s personality

Character Design Inspiration blog

Concept art, fan art, cool art to be inspired by

Character design references and inspiration

Sources for POC character design ideas and models

Create your own character model using HeroForge

For horned characters

Body and hair types guide

Random outfit generator

Naming Help:

Amazing site with an endless amount of naming resources

General advice on avoiding naming appropriation

Hispanic Surnames

Gothic Victorian names

Huge master list for character things in general

Masterlist of names of all types - including but not limited to ancient/old world names, Celtic, African, Northern European, Southern and Central American Native names, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, Polynesian, and more

Another name masterlist

How to pick a character name guide

Yet another names masterlist

Creating Background/backstory:

Character Sheet/Development Sheet

Another character development list

In-depth character personality, motivations and traits sheet

320 talents and passions for characters

On writing likes and dislikes that aren’t frivolous

Why you should write non-human characters non-conforming to the gender binary

Stereotypes, tropes, and archetypes

Random backstory generator

Assassin and thief character tropes to avoid

Character Interactions and putting your character into your world/story:

Comparing character height/height references

Characters who are scientists and writing about them doing science

Describing what different voices sound like

Describing skin tones

Writing friendship interactions that are platonic

Why having one character knock their friend unconscious to prevent them from doing something is a bad idea

Advice on shipping OCs with canon characters and what to avoid doing

Sweet Polly Oliver and Sweet on Polly Oliver situations (think of Disney’s Mulan for an example)

How to write multiple viewpoints/juggling a main cast of more than 4 to 6 characters

How to make readers care about your morally gray hero/anti-hero

On platonic OC and canon character relationships

How to avoid Godmodding in RPs

When it’s cheap to kill off a character

Writing dialogue

Things you shouldn’t do to canon characters

Avoiding purple prose in writing and RPs

Slang resources

Dialogue tips

Websites to chart your story/plot/character relationships

A big to-do about SmashBits Animations

4 months ago now, SmashBits on Youtube started a series in order to cash in on the Undertale craze. If Undertale was Realistic. For a while, I saw it in my recommended, but paid it no mind.

It wasn’t long after the video was booming that I got a message from my friend @pipann about how the series was using her Undertale Models.

Not only was this done without her permission, but they were monetizing on it through Patreon, and while they gave credit to their animators and voice actors, there wasn’t a single line of credit to be found regarding the modelers and the models SmashBits ripped from the Steam Workshop.

Contact was made, disappointment was expressed, and at the end of the day, all that could be offered to Pip and the other model makers was that they would be publicly credited for their work. The project would continue to be funded through Patreon, so the animators and voice actors were still being paid. The modelers were not. This was ignored for the time being.

Recently, however, SmashBits got a sponsorship, and have injected a minute long product placement ad into their latest “If Undertale was Realistic” in order to earn even more money through their sponsors on top of revenue from clicks and their Patreon. They were continuing to make even more money off the backs of modelers who’d done the time to sculpt, map, and rig these models that were meant to be used on terms of the modelers (whom mostly allowed these models to be used for fun, not for profit).

Through encouragement of myself and others, Pip issued a DMCA and marked all points in the offending videos of the series in which her model(s) were present. She got the attention of one of the partners of SmashBits and they had been in the middle of finding a solution that would make both parties happy. But the moment the head of Smashbits decided to Counter Claim the DMCA, any negotiation went out the window.

Pip has attempted to leave comments about the situation on SmashBits’s page, both when the DMCA was first issued, and after the Counter Claim was made.

As of now, the comments have been deleted by someone at Smash Bits [Right click -> view image in new tab for full view]

This was to keep the now angry mob that is Smashbit’s fanbase informed as to what was going on in order to keep accusations from flying.

But with SmashBits having deleted the comment, their fanbase is left in the dark to continue being angry.

I, myself, have also left a comment.  [Right click -> view image in new tab for full view]

But lo and behold it is no longer there when I go into Incognito Mode

The comments still appear for both myself and Pip due to Youtube’s cache being a bit slow to update for us. But it’s confirmed SmashBits is trying hardcore to cover their ass over the fact that they are making money using assets they have no right to, and even after several people have contacted them angrily about it when it all started, they doubled down to get even MORE money through the sponsorship without having consulted any of the artists.

I have even been outright muted to keep from posting any information on their discussion page. They themselves have not made any comment regarding the scenario other than “the videos will be back soon”.

I normally am against callout posts, but this is a case where the offending party (Or at least the head of the party) is very much in the wrong, and it needs to be known. The artists are not the bad guys for wanting to be properly respected and to not be seen as just a tool that gives people free assets to make money off of.

Smash Bits does not deserve to go unscathed from this. Spread the word. Inform the fanbase of the hacks they actually art.

Section 6B, relating to the user generated content uploaded to the steam workshop:

Workshop Contributions are Subscriptions, and therefore you agree that any Subscriber receiving distribution of your Workshop Contribution will have the same rights to use your Workshop Contribution (and will be subject to the same restrictions) as are set out in this Agreement for any other Subscriptions.

The user generated content section (section 6) makes no mention of commercial or monetized use, but it does specifically mention that workshop contributions are considered subscriptions, and under the same terms as other subscriptions. So on the use of subscriptions:

Section 2A, general content and services license

Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a non-exclusive license and right, to use the Content and Services for your personal, non-commercial use (except where commercial use is expressly allowed herein or in the applicable Subscription Terms).

In addition: Section 2G, restrictions on use of content and services.

You may not use the Content and Services for any purpose other than the permitted access to Steam and your Subscriptions, and to make personal, non-commercial use of your Subscriptions, except as otherwise permitted by this Agreement or applicable Subscription Terms. 

You are entitled to use the Content and Services for your own personal use, but you are not entitled to: … (iii) exploit the Content and Services or any of its parts for any commercial purpose, except as expressly permitted elsewhere in this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use). 

Emphasis mine. The gist is that you can use subscription content, which as mentioned in 6B includes workshop contributions, for personal, non-commercial use. So the offending videos would have been fine if they were not commercial in nature, or if permission for commercial use was explicitly given by the content creator, but I think it’s safe to say that neither of this is the case. In case there was any doubt.

The only area I think there might be any question about is that it might be difficult to hold legal precedent against the video creator if these models were created without authorization from the holders of title to the Undertale IP (i.e., an unauthorized representation of an owned character or whatever the legalese is). That is probably something more explicitly stated in whatever usage agreement that Undertale has, unless explicitly stated otherwise by the Undertale IP holder.

No matter what they say I never gave them express permission. I refused their offering purely out of respect for Toby, and any other IP owners they would have tried to involve. They have no way to prove it that I ever said to them that I gave them my consent. The only truth is that I agreed (reluctantly) to let them continue their ways, but it’s now different since sponsorship is involved.

Not to mention that their trigger-happy use of the term “Open Source Filmmaker” is a favored excuse to imply that SFM is fully open source and royalty free, commercial use included. This is what OSFM really means: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/OpenSourceFilmmaker It’s a fan group, dedicated to SFM. They pull this excuse time after time again. I’m sick and tired of this going on repeat.

You don't get to make models based off SOMEONE ELSE'S intellectual property, release them to the public, then suddenly expect to have some say as to who can use them for monetary reasons and pull a copyright strike, because yo are not the copyright owner.

If these were your own original characters then yes, this would be something you could claim a right to. But just as you took someone else's concept and character designs without asking and made your own creative work with it, they took your inspired work and made their own creative animation with it. The videos are not "for profit"; they're free work that anyone can access. The audience is the commercial audience and YouTube pays for audiences to be reached, but advertising on a platform for a free product is not the same as selling someone's work. That is the difference between an artist selling prints of their work, and having Google Adsense enabled on their Tumblr that they draw fan art on.

Playing with @krita-foundation‘s animation beta!

If you like a good tale of game development including the learning experience and all behind the scenes life of a independent game developer/musician, you might have fun following Brando a.k.a @theamazingbrand0​ in his quest to develop Animus: Before & Beyond.

Brando’s skills are progressing quickly so it’s fun to see how the game’s turning out. The Patreon video is funny too.

Photographing the Beauty and Inhumanity of Asia’s Cramped Megacities

the Chroniclers Company

He took me up into the Laurel Highlands, past where stupid old British General Braddock got himself shot in the back and where George Washington built and surrendered his first fort to the French and their Indian allies (though the enemy never got his cannon because George hid them).  We got to the end of the track our family had always taken up into the mountains, and Pa gave me a panic button if I wanted to quit.  He’d come and get me then, but he’d give up on me, too.  That was another thing we knew without saying.

Long story short, I was coming down a hill my second day, worn out because I’d gotten little sleep in the cold, and upset because I hadn’t seen or heard any birds or animals let alone an eagle (I wasn’t what you would call an observant kid) when I tripped and fell.  Down I went, and tumbled.  I stopped on the bank of a stream,

I had my first aid badger from Girl Scouts, and supplies in my back pack, so I soaked my sprained ankle in the icy creek, then bound it up.  By the time I found a branch long and strong enough to lean on, it was coming on sunset.  I had two more days before Pa started to track me.  I wanted at least to be partway back before he found me. 

I had given up on that eagle.  He’d have to wait for my sisters Kim and Dani to get big enough.  They’d find theirs; they were better in the woods than me already.  I was just a daydreamer, someone who never had any sense.  Put me to shelling peas or doing dishes and I’d take twice as long as anyone else, because I’d be telling myself stories.  That’s what I did that night, to keep my mind off my pain.  I told myself stories of brave girls who found their eagles and went off to be soldiers (girls weren’t allowed to be in the Army then) or joined the FBI (we weren’t allowed to be agents, either).  If the owls who hooted or the deer who drank at the stream liked the story, that was good, too.

I must have dozed off sometime before dawn.  When I woke, a golden eagle stood by my hand.  Not a bald eagle, like all those in my family, or like my friends’ parents had, or like people had on TV.  A golden eagle, a big fellow with a trout in his beak.  He dropped it on my knee.

At first I couldn’t breathe.  When I could talk, I said, “Thanks, but I have jerky, and peanut butter, and celery, and … things.  You eat it.”  And he did.

When Pa saw me limping on the track three days from where he’d dropped me, dirty and crazy-looking with twigs in my hair and no eagle on my shoulder, he stopped and looked at me, his weathered face like stone.  Then Anthony Wayne, his eagle, began to raise hell on his shoulder as Tecumseh glided down from his tree top.  We’d found it was easier for him to fly ahead and wait for me than for him to ride on my shoulder, at least while I had one bum foot.  This time, though, for the purposes of meeting family, he settled on my shoulder.

I describe things all the time, but I can never describe the look on my Pa’s face.  I only know that he reached a hand out to Tecumseh, who stretched out and touched his fingers with his beak.  Finally Pa said, “It’s been right in front of me all along.  I’ve been trying to make you a strong member of the family, and you are strong, but you’re also a medicine woman.  A dreamer.  And this is a dreamer’s eagle.”

“His name’s Tecumseh,” I said.

Tecumseh fluffed himself up with pride.

Artworks by Jaime Jasso

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