Today I Joined The Ranks Of That Illustrious Class Of People Who've Performed A Smartphone Baptism By

River near Cut Bank, MT

hey sorry I know this is late since u made that post last year but I rEALLY need to know. How did u make your face all skull-like? did you make the skull mask yourself?

Sorry Im so bad about replying to messages! I got the mask from http://www.mostlydead.com/products/skull-makeup-effects-appliance-maskIt was actually kinda small for my face but its really meant to be worn with a hood. I definitely want to sculpt my own someday but this one is great! Theres lots of skull prosthetics out there but that ones my favorite, most of them try to make it look angry/"evil" and I have Opinions about that. ;p

tomorrowland was all of the things i love!!!!! retrofuturism! saving the world thru SCIENCE! athena's wendy dress (seriously LOOK AT THIS DRESS)! Antique interdimensional rocketships! Hugh Laurie dressed like a crotchety mayor of the emerald city of Oz! murderous yet quirky robot people! directed by brad bird!!! this review sums up how I feel pretty well. I really needed this movie xD

WALTER MANOR?

Ok this is gonna be rambly bear with me. I don't blab about what I post here usually cos portraits and clothes whatevs, self-explanatory. But ARCHITECTURE, OK. I am so happy with this you don't even know. I've messed with sketchup a few times in the past with the intention of modeling locations in my stories but this is the first time I was motivated enough to power straight thru 3D's infuriating learning curve (I still can't function in Blender at ALL the interface makes me cry but I'll keep trying). I traced the elevation from the comic and the rest has been a series of educated guesses from what I know about architecture. It's pretty straightforward to figure out scale and floor locations based on window placement. I reeeally want to do the whole manor because it's fun to think about all the wacky stuff that must be in it and I'm seriously looking forward to the comic for exactly this reason. Seriously, where is Bebop.

So YEAH I totally want to do the interior, etc, but that depends on what Bunny and Sam share with us. Hint hint.

Hint hint

When creating/designing anything- fantasy races, settings, clothes- do you prefer to try isolate them from this world and let your imagination flow by itself or do you like to do things like deliberately draw from history, base cultures off other cultures, places off other places, etc?

I would say a mixture of both but I think it's SO important to make the distinction that creativity doesnt happen in a vaccuum ever, springing forth purely from mysterious dark recessess of your mind, everything you think of has a previous frame of reference. I feel as an artist (and ahem as a human being) the goal is to learn and study as much as possible, collect as many experiences as possible, stuff that into your mental reference library and a creative inspiration will do the rest. Even ideas that pop into my conscious are never fully formed, so it is often at that point I work on it more systematically. What are my goals for the idea, what interests me about it, how can I make the idea more effective.

I think maybe an example could illustrate this best? I've been working on a sort of fairytale thing, it's based on a dream I had that had a couple of characters (a singing robot guy, and two witch princesses) but not much else to go on if it would be made into a story, which I totally felt needed to happen as soon as I woke up! So I started with the character, and the starting "facts" of them. And then I had to decide the type of story I wanted, and the tone (fairytale! cute and romantic... possibly... a love story). Then the ideas for setting and genre were important (if one of the characters is a robot, and there are also shenanigans involved that are suspiciously magical, well then let's go with steampunk. Ottoman Empire steampunk). New characters are developed to serve the needs of plot (a protagonist/other half of love equation was needed, so I created Edie and made her a mechanic), and once those things are figured out I start doing lots more research to fill in all worldbuilding details (this is not important to the story at all.. maybe... lol sometimes I am so torn about what is plot relevant or not- but I made up a country for the alternate history timeline and the reasons for its existence, its political system, economy, and culture) so that in the end, everything involved in this imaginary story and world and people is actually coherent. That helps the emotional aim of the work to feel more true, even in fantastical settings and situations. Sometimes the setting is closer to "reality" ( near or distant future perhaps, historical fantasy, urban fantasy, parallel universe), sometimes not as close (making a world from scratch, decidedly NOT in our universe, totally different laws of physics apply- or don't apply- its misleading to think that this type is simpler and requires less research; but that's a whole looooooong extra thing to talk about imo).  Either way, things have to make their own type of sense or the story won't be as engaging. If art is self-expression and you are communicating, it's about being a good communicator, making a connection.

BLA BLA PREACH PREACH. Point being is that this is a both/and thing, but also niether. Creativity is problem solving. When its in the form of art instead of say, engineering or even design, people make out the process to be more mysterious and abstract but my personal view on this is that it's not really different, its just that the problems art (and philosophy, etc) try to address are more emotional and existential.

I don't know if I'm making any sense :( But that's how I feel about it and I articulate it as best I can man this ended up long and rambly

OLD PROJECT IS NEW AGAIN! A backplate and mounting plate to use for lots of different costume things. It's based on the usual idea of attaching wings to a corset, with hard Sintra mounting plate idea from a project by @paintyourdragon (of twitter, adafruit)! BACKPLATE__ Used an elastic exercise belt that I reinforced with window screen and washers for tear resistance. The belt bolts to my overdesigned pvc board back plate xD its padded with backpack spacer mesh, with pvc pipes as mounting sockets which hopefullyyyy the placement will be useful for multiple things (wings of course, gigantic Beedle backpack, Sashimono samurai flag). The plate is covered in foam, worbla,and cheap lining fabric to smooth it out, and I predrilled a BUNCH of holes marked with small washers in case i want to sew something to it or whatever. Futureproofing I GUESS. MOUNTING PLATE__ I made two of these simultaneously and used my cute and sweet and skilled bestie @maddycatcosplay as build tester, for her Pharah costume, cos I never finish things and she does xD This specific plate design was for bolting Pharah wings to (I spent 2wks building a jig to bend special aluminum brackets, so the wings would be at the proper angle, argh), as well as an easy way to attach gigantic Blizzard shoulder armor :P Another sintra plate was bolted to some bent pvc pipes and just slots in and out, I'm pretty proud of it! End Goal was simply something to wear heavy things on the back without too much strain, though obviously its still great to try and make stuff as light as possible... Hopefully some of these ideas help other people with their projects! It doesn't actually have to be this much work and detail for it to function, I just spend a lot of time and energy trying to make things as durable and comfortable as possible. A Very Important costuming soapbox issue for me, DO NOT risk injury for a costume, thanks for readingggg https://www.instagram.com/p/B-u5yQLjW09/?igshid=zw0kb3t6oi0v

"Would you like a second opinion? You are also UGLY!"

HEHEHehehe for the katyamola who I <3 very much. How much? THIS MUCH (I may have overdone the blood but I don't know what I'm doing and too scared to look for realistic ref 8<)

Also OHMYDEARGODFINALLY. "Soon". Ahaha in valve time.

Messin with some rainbow hair and rainbow tinsel. Four different sets of ombre brading hair found from trolling ebay which is my ultimate pastime :p these are actually experiments v2 and v3 Imma keep going until I find a blend I am happy with

I thought it might be helpful to post pic of character also because I feel bad for not having new art since I mentioned as an example. I have been tweaking her design a lot since I drew this but it is essentially the same.

I think there's a lot of mixed opinion about what qualities make a good protagonist, they have to be relatable but not looking for a full self-insert (though I GUESS that's fine depending on the story), and relatable characters can be pretty subjective too unless you have a really narrow audience? Edie is meant to be, well, ordinary, which is relative, but I think in a fantastical setting it's important to have the protagonist be mostly human, and that doesn't have to be literal, btw, but it's gotta be deliberate "humanizing" characteristics given to someone the less you can take it for granted that they are relatable (like say your protagonist is an alien blob or a serial killer).

blurb:

Edith St. Eisenmädchen's father was a widower from Austria, he was a very talented mechanimancer but fell into extreme debt due to plot contrivance, and then he DIED. Edie lives with her stepmother Hortencia Casamaestro and both of them work two jobs to pay off that asshole's debts fffff

She works for the Royal Axiomatic Mechanimancer corps (RAMcorps) as a low level engineering technician/grunt. She is somewhat odd there being a woman and all, but its not unheard of, it would be like finding a female mechanic in an autobody shop... well, TODAY. Her second job is helping out part-time at Bridgemason Bro's Repair & Resale which is owned by a family friend. In her free time she likes to make and sell musical instruments that play themselves, and stomp around in the city underground (sorta identical to seattle underground) scavenging for parts and scrapped equipment.

Awww shit as a random aside I looked at the wikipedia entry for Dexter and got season 5 spoilers DAMMIT WHY DID I LOOK.

ww!

tyuran answered your question: Are there any beloved stories/series you’ve read/watched that have heavily influenced the feel or content of any of your own ideas?

Definitely Dinotopia... and DEFINITELY everything Myst. Oh dear god Myst, Riven, URU, even the novels (tho I wasn't impressed with the... quality of writing... just the world itself is so so so so so so so wonderful). I replay all the games every few years because they are just so much everything I love. EVERYTHING. I loved it when I learned the D'ni civilization was in a cave in New Mexico, I love all the damn soundtracks, I love that the ten thousand year political history of the entire civilization is plotted out, I love the beautiful language, the base5 number system (which I will admit I did NOT solve in Riven on my own), and of course all the wonderful wonderful art that has gone into creating the cultures and the Ages. Nfffhfhfhhfhahajdfhkas. MYST.