ktastrophe blog

What you have here are images of power, and do you really believe these characters are designed with titillating heterosexual women and bisexual and homosexual men in mind? Because I don’t think you do.

This is why the Hawkeye Initiative exists. Take common female poses in comics, put a man in the role, and see how “empowering” and “strong” it actually looks: 

Also: 

Hugh Jackman on a men’s magazine. He’s shirtless and buff and angry. He’s imposing and aggressive. This is a male power fantasy, it’s what men want to be and aspire to - intense masculinity.

Hugh Jackman on a women’s magazine.  He looks like a dad. He looks like he’s going to bake me a quiche and sit and watch Game of Thrones with me. He looks like he gives really good hugs.

Men think women want big hulking naked men in loin cloths which is why they always quote He-Man as male objectification - without realizing that He Man is naked and buff in a loin cloth because MEN WANT HIM TO BE. More women would be happy to see him in a pink apron cutting vegetables and singing off-key to 70s rock.

So they came up with a pretty interesting solution: they located the biggest stalactite they could find in the cavern.  Those with ranged attacks chipped away at the stalactite, and the others used their turns to keep the ooze kited beneath it.

Finally, they did enough damage to the stalactite to make it break away from the cavern ceiling and crash into the ooze below.  It was an extremely successful maneuver.

A few years ago when I was in my second year of college I worked at a Five Guys and was scheduled to work on New Year’s Eve. Normally the store would close at 10 but because it was a holiday, we were closing at 8 that night and I had a party to get to after work. Like a plague, a huge line of customers forms around 7:50. We were still open for another 10 minutes so we had to take their orders but we kindly let each group know that we were closing at 8 that night. Most people were very understanding and some even ate and left really fast but two groups of people (one wearing obnoxious blinking party hats) seemed to take personal offense to us telling them we were closing at 8 and stayed as long as possible seemingly just to spite us. We kept the doors unlocked so every time new customers came in thinking we were still open we would say we were closed hoping the people still sitting there would get the idea and pack up and head out. Didn’t work.

It’s now approaching 8:45 and I’m gonna be late to this party regardless so now my mindset shifts from getting people to leave to getting revenge. Five Guys has those fancy, touch screen, coke machines. The nozzles need to be taken out and cleaned and without the nozzle, the water and syrup don’t mix well and spray out like a diarrhea storm in every direction and the syrup just globs onto everything. One of the tables had finished their food a while ago and, possibly in an attempt to prolong their stay, kept refilling their drinks every few minutes. I decide it’s time to get more of a jump on cleaning so I take the nozzles out of both coke machines knowing what would happen, stand at the counter and wait.

It took all of 2 minutes for some girl to get up and head to one of the machines. When she hit the button the machine just fucking assaulted her with coke syrup while making this loud ass hissing noise that clearly scared the shit out of her. I look over at her and her white shirt is soaked and covered in dark spots. I was just about to walk over to her and explain what had happened and passive aggressively apologize for the “accident” so she wouldn’t cause a fuss with my boss when I noticed she was walking to the other machine. I stood back and watched as the same fucking thing happened again. At this point, I just walked over and said something along the lines of “Oh, sorry. These machines do that without the nozzles and we’re closed so we’re cleaning them now.” I think I handed her like two napkins as if they would help. She and her friends left without an issue a few minutes later which signaled to the other group that it was finally time to leave.

“Witches: We Need You!”

So I posted this on facebook and long story short 50 shades of shade happened in the comments. 

“no that’s not dramatic and cheesy enough”

“getting warmer”

Drawing A to Drawing B: -the most obvious change is the exaggeration of the line of motion in the character.  

In Drawing B the line of motion is much more pronounced, creating more drama and movement to the whole composition

-The arms are open wider, showing more confidence and exuberance in the character, exaggerating their emotions so they can be more clearly read without having to look to the face for emotional cues.

-the legs are wider apart, adding to the aforementioned confidence but also giving the character a solid foundation, visually speaking.

-The head is tilted back and overlapped by the chest, adding a touch of dynamic perspective to the drawing.

Drawing B to Drawing C:  -Most obvious change is to zoom in on the character.  Character framing is just as important as what the character is doing.  Zooming in can help infensify emotions.  this shot is ALL about this character and what they’re feeling. -Because of the zooming in, the arms/hands would have gotten lost, so instead of making the canvas wider, the artist has elected to rotate the character slightly, bringing a dynamic angle to things and more intensity to the close shot. -While the character is more upright in this shot compared to Drawing B, in Drawing C the chest still slightly overlaps the neck, preserving the feeling of being slightly below the character (putting them in a position of power relative to the viewer), which helps maintain confidence and power in the character. -the chest is exaggerated to carry the majority of the body’s line of action so even though you cannot see the legs, our brains are able to fill in the gap and envision that line of action. -The cropping/framing of the character allows for a more interesting composition/negative shapes created by the positive (character) on the negative (background), creating more visual interest as well as a circular motion to the composition through the arms, across the face to the negative space for the eyes to rest in before dropping to the hand in the background and back through the composition again.

Art block is that moment when you realise your skills could be so much more then they currently are. It frustrates you to draw because you can finally see your drawings differently. You can see where they can be better and you want them to be better.  It’s not a matter of “I can’t draw today”, it’s a matter of “I imagined this would turn out so much better” and “there’s something missing, I just know it. What technique did I miss.” You’ve got past that temporary phase of analysing and researching and now you’re able to incorporate it in your own work, you just need to figure out how, and when you get past that art block. Well, you’ll see the improvement before you know it. Slowly, but it’s there. And once you get comfortable with using those new skills you’ll move on and start analysing again, and you’ll see where you can improve.