#eek rambles

Understanding the patterns of story and archetypes is REALLY - I CANNOT SAY IT LOUD ENOUGH - REALLY REALLY HELPFUL for someone who doesn't even understand this world that we live in most of the time.

Like everything is story. Marketing is story. Presentations are story. Movies are obviously story. One piece is story inside of story (i think a lot about one piece when trying to understand the real world aaaa). We project story even onto things that have no inherent story. Two silverfish on my wall, one big one small: silverfish papa showing his son their world (which is my bathroom) -> i cannot kill them with this story in mind.

Story is creating a desire/promise and fulfilling it at the end. Google calendar promises to make your life managable across all devices = acessable. One piece promises that we will see how luffy becomes king of the pirates (this is the promise that keeps viewers watching since ep 1). The beginning of a tiktok showing the result before it shows the process to get to there IS A PROMISE to keep you watching. Social media promises entertainment disguised as information or inspiration but leaves you numb and driveless afterwards. Byt it's easier than actually dojng the things on social media yourself. It's easier than feeling bad for yourself because you can't have the life they have on social media. But because you can live experiences and feelings through other people it is as if you see a glimpse into another reality. Where you are them. Where you have the perfect life in the perfect reel. And everytime it's a different life, a different reel. The unpredictability makes this alternate self dream so addicting.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk, you should watch this ted talk actually:

My skill definetely lies in sketching, not in lineart or coloring. I don't like the look of flat colors, but i can't render something accurately either, so i'm stuck with a kind of uncertain and fluctuing coloring style (wich i don't like).

When working with reference, copying the lights & shadows is no problem. But everyhting past that - any freedom i could stylistically take - is not happening. I'm very strictly copying reality (wich is kinda lame).

The only thing that saves me is putting loads of textures everywhere. This upgrades my traditional pieces as well as character art.

Now for the money part, i went to some anime conventions, trying to sell my childrens books and some art prints. I know my stuff doesn't really belong there and thats propably why no one is interested in my stuff. We don't have many art fairs here so thats why i went to cons first. Last time i got a big live commission which saved my day, so now i'm thinking of selling originals (additionally to prints) and taking more commission work at cons.

They mean that the person has vanishing points. I repeat.

THEY MEAN THAT THE PERSON HAS VANISHING POINTS!!!! Which all converge to the horizon line!!! (at least those lines, that are parallel to the ground)

This might not be news for ya'll, but the just draw the person in a cube thing NEVER worked for me. It feels super stiff and limiting to me. I'm thinking geometry first, figure second. However this approach is a bit more natural to me. I drew the upper half of the pose first, checked where my vanishing point would loosely lie, and went on to correct my first assumed horizon line, as you can see in the drawing.

The horizon line now is at the knee, which means, that i, the "photographer" of that scene am close to the ground, my eyes are on the height of that knee. That's my horizon.

Now with the leg under the hl i was struggling, because i didn't think about my second vanishing point yet. It informs the position of the foot immensely, and this lack of information about boxes and perspective previously made some challenging poses look super awkward.

I just watched the little mermaid 1989 (for the first time) and the live action remake back to back. It's weird how they complement each other.

For example i like that the remake gave Arielle and Eric both parental issues and their little trinket collecting hobby to bond over. He longs for the sea, she longs for the humans ect ect. The themes are there but don't stretch through the whole movie, which is disappointing imo. But still better than no parallels at all i think.

And then the 1989 movie really shines in emotional story beats. In expressions and pauses for the characters to think and act - not just react. I think the scene where triton destroys all of arielles little trinkets is so much more impactful in the animation. It's established that these objects mean the world to her. She is amazed by every new found, nevermind how little. And in the live action i barely saw her present those objects to the viewer in the cave. It's like she sings about dancing and WHERE'S THE LITTLE MUSIC BOX WITH THE DANCING COUPLE?? There's often no image to attatch the lyrics to. And the moments when she breaks in to song are so awkward sometimes because the animal sidekicks are not talking with her, for her to then be overwhelmed by feelings.

When she saved Eric in the animation, she is all over him and basically fangirling with her best friend about how pretty he is - then breaks into song. In the live action she is alone with him and just starts singing... Idk it's pretty awkward.

I'm grateful that tarzan, my beloved, has yet been untouched by the remake illness, and hopefully it will stay that way.

Also i have to find out how they did the wobble effect for the underwater scenes in the animation. I saw a making of, where they said that they already did it in pinnochio, so maybe i'll find it there somewhere. I don't know why but i have this craving to know how things are made. Also the reflections of the water on the seaground in the animated movie - so gorgeus! I think that is something, that the live action was missing out on. That added so much life to the seafloor and backgrounds in general.

So i painted some random sheets of paper with acrylics and gouache and scanned them. Now i can just cut them and change the colors to what ever suits best digitally. And i think this is a method that suits so many ideas of mine, that i just couldn't get right until now. You'll see. It'll be great and awesome and textured.

A lil wip teaser of this technique: