Behind The Curtains In Black Hat's Room...

morning cat yoga (yeah those 🏳️‍⚧️ colors were chosen like this on purpose)

what's your process for coloring and shading? I'm a beginner when it comes to those elements with art and I'm super inspired by your artstyle! <3

well I'd say there isn't really a process behind it!

I'm very simple. bc I quickly get overwhelmed by ADHD.

I line my sketch... and then I bucket-tool fill it with the canon eyedropper-picked colors... and then I throw some cell shading on there. on the exact same layer.

I got 2 layers; lines, and colors.

since it's a cartoon character you'll wanna keep it simple and limit the amount of colors you use to 1-2 shades for any surface max. even the shading color is actually just color picked off canon screenshots. I don't use layer modes.

the only tip I can give is to not put all the shading just on the edges of everything. use big shapes, be confident, don't blur or airbrush it if you don't know what you're doing with those tools. triangle shapes are especially nice for clothes.

think of where exactly the light source comes from before starting to shade/render, if necessary literally draw a small lamp into the corner.

the magic in my art comes from duplicating and Gaussian blurring my lineart and the particular settings I use to adjust the colors with Correction Layers (in CSP. if curious I could simply give out all of my exact settings here or you're freely allowed to color pick off my art, no credit since I don't own colors.) trust me you don't wanna see my art without those tweaks

here's a doodle of Flug with TJ_beastboy's tats

Thank you💜💛

I feel bad for requesting anything cause they can be annoying but: Flug with a festive gift bag on instead of his paper bag?

Oh no, don’t feel bad! It’s pure joy so far and I need the practice badly since I’m pretty much new to serious art, as long as y'all got a little patience everything is fine! In exchange I’m trying to provide quality content(?)

What a cute idea! Not gonna lie, my uncreative ass grabbed the first thing that pops up when you type in “festive gift bags” but I also learned more about the program I’m using

AUGGHHAAA i just scrolled thru like your entire blog just looking at flug...... i have been in love with him for like. seven years now??? and i just. GGRGRRERURGHRG YOUR FLUG ART IS SO PERFECT I'M SO OBSESSED

7 years??? like me?? omg I hear that rarely nowadays, another fandom dinosaur!!

Thank you, I'm happy I can provide

we spontaneously decided to renovate the apartment bc this entire household has unmedicated ADHD so I can't offer you anything more than this pixel art attempt (I didn't even try ngl there's no elbow grease put into this attempt)

I would just love to make a little side scroller game in this style but unfortunately I have zero to no intelligence when it comes to technology

Hey! I was wondering since you said that English isn’t your first language and all and the translation thing (Which is totally fine btw! I’m the same way) …

What is your first language? Sorry if this is like too personal, but I’m genuinely really curious!

Ich spreche normalerweise deutsch

Berliner/Sächsischer dialekt mix

my brain also gets confused bc I can speak a little bit of many languages. spanish namely, also simple french, dutch and japanese

paperhat in german would be eons better than in english, bc Flug has to use the formal "you" for Black Hat. and he would. he would (have to) continue even once they are together bc he probably demands it. Black Hat could use it for Flug (should, under normal circumstances of the rule) but most likely doesn't respect him enough for that. it strengthens the power imbalance soo much bc it is ALWAYS mutual irl.

this is indescribably ancient so it's really bad [the text is NSFWish]

commonly, only the older one can offer the informal "you" to another person. it would be high praise and trust to get the offer from your boss.

if your language doesn't have that layer of politeness you don't understand how much tension and power there is behind even a simple casual conversation, it's so appealing ughh (if you use it in a ship. bc you never use it in your private life, not even when you meet someone you date for the first time. it's just strange to use for a partner whether long-term or one-night. paperhat would be a quite unique case.)

*hey psst I heard you heard you need a free animation software and I searched the internet and found Pencil2D? Sorry if I doesn't work out for you lol I'm just an anon who doesn't know a lot ;-;

Aww that's the cutest! I think I've heard about it before too, gonna give it a try as soon as I feel better- got super sick last week. The tutorials I watched yesterday certainly looked easy enough. Thank you lots!

If you had the opportunity to rewrite dementia any way you wanted, what would you do?

that is a really good question! since I am having a bit of a hiccup warming up to her.

it's bc I require emotional depth for me to be interested in a character.

which I'm absolutely sure there is a lot of in her... but we've just not seen enough to work with. I like mentally disturbed characters that are struggling more outwardly, like Flug or Miss Heed. I think it's less of a writing flaw and more CN/Warner holding them back from releasing the stuff as it was roughly planned probably. maybe if we had the rest of the 1st season we'd already be much further in her character development.

there's core emotions that I NEED to see in a character to get hooked, which is fear, regret and grief.

none of which we've seen in her yet. nothing genuine that's not caused by the brainwash she stands under.

the most conflicting thing we've seen her do is having tears well up in her eyes after Flug hit her which didn't come off as physical pain, but emotional. that's interesting, but too short of a moment.

I feel like anything I'd "change" about her are things that are canonically planned, we just have to wait.

I think what's missing in her rn is self-awareness.

without her artificial obsession with Black Hat, she is nobody. maybe she'll have a crisis later about exactly that; not knowing who she is as a person. she should. if and when she snaps out of that she's wasted a large chunk of her life under his influence.

let's say it like that, if they don't start to show clearer signs of character development in the remaining S1 episodes, that's what I'd change. pick up the pace a bit. there's more obvious foreshadowing about literally every other character than about her. they really keep her backstory a secret.

there's so much to work with. why is her name Demencia? what's her real name? why did she arrive there "barefoot"? why is she better at math than Flug? why did she react so silenced when confronted with her mortality? was it fear? what does she truly fear? what or who is important to her outside of the hypnosis? does she have a real goal, for herself? smth must have led her to Black Hat... did he lure her or did she have such a terrible life before all this that she saw no other use to her existence than to turn to him?

you already know this drawing but I think I never posted it here

however I'd like to change 1 thing about her visual design for sure.

Please give her muscles. like... all the time.

I've criticized often before that I find the female characters in the show slowly drift too much into one and the same mould, their silhouettes are all the same, since Miss Heed; every relevant female character looks like her body type (...and some newer ones even in the face.) they could start diverting from that by giving Demencia muscles (not just in promo illustrations or closeup shots of her flexing, I feel like they could easily always draw a visible biceps on her)

that's not too hard to animate either, I mean they animated Sunblast and Airlock and that whole 5th episode, and it can't be harder than all the striped and spiked elements in Dem's design.

More stuff from Twitter before I forget to post this here too again-

I have a small request but please take all the time you need to work on it ^^ I would like to request Flug looking happy with a mug of hot cocoa in his hands. Please and thank you ^^

You, my dear friend, literally read my mind

From the moment I drew Black Hat for the 1st Advent Sunday I spontaneously planned out the project to let the other 3 idiots of the crew join in on the holly jolly spirit; every Sunday! And coincidentally this was my exact idea for Flug too so I was one step ahead muhahaha-

The world is small

sorry I haven’t posted in forever, I really like servamp now too