kradeelav

having fun being a weeb doing research for an upcoming project ~

    bright eyes x #zihark ~ (fire emblem oc/canon selfship)

finished sketchdump! more context on the ship at dreamwidth . character design workshop thoughts below ~

i was telling my doujin circle recently it's been neat finally getting the confidence to tackle my body type as a cool character design puzzle to solve since the combination is so rare (coughnonexistent) to see.

(also with the rancid villain vibes that "I" want. because it's hot. /send tweet.)

something a lot of artists underestimate is good character design is always problem solving  -- you want them to be not just cookie cutter copypasta original character 2044223 but unique in a way that they're tangible, iconic, have quirks of body language that tells volumes about how they live, and so forth.

for example, few things I was thinking of:

* every character i design (since the iron crown days and before that) has some sort of intentional raw sleazy sex appeal and this was no exception. :3 along with this inspiration board i was pulling from yzma as a good example of said appeal; extremely unique body type (same knobby fingers as me, villain vibes even), great range of comedy and drama, also Would. it ain't even a 'hear me out' with her ~

frankly i also wanted low key masc-ish vibes for bright eyes; it annoys me to no end about the stranglehold of femme presentation in character design for chicks. i've joked before my favorite way of presenting is leather drag king, and folks with eyes and a nose for history probably see more than one allusion here ~

* there's no reference out there in terms of designing younger(ish) characters with a hunchback so you have to start from scratch in a lot of ways, or reference the elderly characters. (the grandma from mulan is one of the few professional character design sheets that that alludes anywhere near the "physics" of the shapes.)

likewise naturally with the height, clothes ain't gonna fit right, and i can absolutely see the summoner robes lookin' oversized over the shoulders, the centre circle sagging /less circle-like, etc. i figure the bottom of the robe is hemmed off as well since that's a hasty easy fix. there's also a subtle concealment of the larger joints.

* one of these days i'll probably animate a walk cycle for the lulz b/c it's so fucked :D

* there's also an intentionality with bright eyes feeling off, somehow. (greyer skin, all of the above because Society is still unfortunately Like That so might as well lean into it, the regeneration/body horror/spirit charmer lore, the ridiculously villain coded color pallet of purple/red/bright yellow). i get very annoyed with character design that's obviously softballing representation in a way that sacrifices iconic qualities; it's one of the reasons i love hellsing's whole cast ~ legit the one cast i can see myself sliding in with zero changes.

* still, there's some harmonization here; bright eyes could theoretically slide into FEH's cast like this with minimal tweaks; the coat's still there. details like the arm bandages are common in the series. the purple top is straight up stolen from zihark :3

some #zihark and selfship shenanigans as distraction ~





i joked on tumblr once about finding the six greasiest evil bastard rats for bright eyes references/inspo and that wasn't much of a joke was it. :D

wind down from projects. bottom two are wips from a scene i may or may not post. #zihark

loved noodlin' at these, but i gotta keep going with other stuff :)
( #zihark x oc). full nsfw piece under the cut


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a certian somebody ate my brain, regular programming to resume.... at some point.

oh who am i kidding. people who've followed me since the dA years know *this* is the regular programming. :P
#zihark

teeny bit of nsfw yume / #zihark art & writing under the cut, don't look at me la la la~

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They have a private game every time he wins an arena duel.

____

She had to swallow a few times more before his thick viscosity would allow words without a raven's croak, sweetly savoring how he tasted. The thick salt was like slow and easy victory -- the same tang of his musk in the early hours of the morning when mouths would trail warm flesh and even his war-calloused hands wasn't enough for heedless hunger.

Zihark was making himself decent again, distinctly hampered by the fact of her leaning against his middle. Neither of them seemed to particularly mind the risk of being found out with pants quite literally down.

"You know." Glancing up to see him working his jaw over behind a hand, she smiled. For a man of such grace and poised self control, getting to see him so crudely undone even for a moment was an indulgence. "I hope this doesn't count as bribery or some shit. Some-how I don't think Soren would approve."

Above her, he gave a hard and slight sputter of amusement at that - but it was a real sound of a laugh, the kind he always gave a breath of hesitation after with a hissed intake as if wondering when the last time it had been.

A wave of sudden smothering certainty crashed through her; the kind of boneless certainty that rearranged the guts of the universe itself to where he was indistinguishable from the beating heart itself. Always - her own heart sang, -always - she wanted this beautiful man to have the merest possibility of that laugh. Damn the heavens if it felt otherwise. she would make it happen.

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yumejoshi
(+ obligatory #zihark tag)

this started off as something funnier as a good natured meme rather than it being as off kilter as it ended up lol - honestly i love it .

i make no secret that i love selfshipping (yumijoshi)  as much as i love weird fucked up media. i also feel like people either approach yumijoshi as a concept with either a totally negative (and to me unfair tone given the history) or an equally flat "positive" tone . to be completely honest both rub me the wrong way.

and ... i'm going to say this wrong but i think it's fun to occasionally poke at the slight ... unreality? with a stick.

both internally consistent with the little daydream stories i've got going on, and both in a larger societal sense without it being too ponderous in a morality sense. that's boring. let yumijoshi be lil freaks basically.

anyway i blame a little of these vibes on my recent evangelion rewatch. x)

missed him.
#zihark


T.E. Lawrence: Certainly it hurts.
Officer: What's the trick then?
T.E. Lawrence: The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.

doodling sweet nothings while being on making-sure-tornado-watch-doesn't-become-tornado-warning duty tonight

#zihark

19 years ♥ #zihark

(meant to post this on vday but got carried away with the colors, lol. experimented with ALL the effects...)

some tenderness ~
filed under #zihark

#zihark

i am having *so* much fun screwing around with new character design Shapes. original drawn for these two's reaction to the new feh book and being judged of ""war crimes"" lol.

tl;dr i feel like my summoner design needed a more accurate upgrade? didn't feel genderbent hojo chaotic evil enough... also kinda want more nuanced sleazy flexibility with some body shapes n shit. LOVE the idea of the summoner's robes being like a lab coat and leaning into the mad scientist shape angle. the tricky part is the hairstyles are really similar so it's figuring out how to differentiate w/o going into boring Default gender shapes.

filed under: #zihark

started doodling this when i was doing the long strip.... i've always loved seeing other people's yumeship memes but just never was brave enough to make one haha. that or mostly it had details i don't want to share or it didn't have stuff I *DO* want to profoundly overshare [barfs this in ur dash]...

filed under #zihark

unorthodox christmas cards for the doujin circle came in this week! :)  i've been incredibly busy with work lately, but this was a wonderful surprise. the one beside my pen holder brings a smile to my face every time i see it.

filed under: #zihark

    The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known // 17pg selfship comic ( #zihark / summoner), #fegen
    on a silly gacha game and the odd little attachments one can make.

to my Muse as always - and to you yumijoshi out there as well ~ <3

read on:
itch (pdf download) / tumblr / ao3 / baraag / bsky / cara

other than (hopefully) being a crunchy krad-typical story on delicious coercion nuances in silly videogames, this current 14 page strip i'm working on captures a lot of my feelings on twenty years of quietly self shipping.

i say quietly since certian areas of the internet wildly misunderstood or mocked selfshipping for the longest time. a lot of folks may not remember when it was viewed with the similar disdain of 'hags writing smoochy BL fanfiction'.

to be honest, i've been trying to get better about making things i give a shit about. and in some ways, i wouldn't be true to that unless this strip came to life. the truest guilty pleasure piece of art if you will.

mind, it's also been very fun to crack the code on toning & return to an old favorite. i hope you'll enjoy it as much as i am~

filed under #zihark

made a *ton* of progress on this FEH #zihark strip this past weekend now that i’m artistically unconstipated. 🙂 hoping to release it october 17 since it's when i unofficially celebrate his birthday (also POR's NA launch date)

some #zihark to keep in touch with my roots

gunterleigh gifts to lululeighsworld for being so kind to me as i loose my mind over their FE hubby <3

first pic is us having a teatime double date :) the refill line is actually an easter egg nod to their adorable fic as it felt apropos. filed under #fefates & #zihark

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sweet nothings.
#zihark

i spent about a month in april 2023 thinking i was gonna do gamedev (lol) but i did make this in blockbench! :D

joining in canon x oc week which made me get off my arse and actually nail down my avatar-stand in for tellius. 😛 turns out designing with the mindset of ‘can you tell the characters apart if they were in gloriously polygonal n64/gamecube graphics’ is a good philosophy.



plus a contribution to canon x oc week that i redrew from last jan ~ longer privateish-locked dreamwidth about it here
#zihark

brain went just a little cuckoo feral the past 2? 3 days?
i somehow remembered i wanted to do a fanservice book of #zihark and uh

iz happenin 😀



oh one more shitpost that i nearly coughed up a lung laughing at

having a lot of fun going completely rainbow lisa frank ham on this one.

if I had one piece of advice for younger artists: find your muse. find that thing you’d obsessively draw even if no one saw your work; where it’s almost not even a choice, it’s a calling. (doesn’t matter how embarrassing you think it is)

platforms, trends, friends, audiences, and fandoms all come and go with life, but if there’s that as a lodestone, you’ll be all right.
#zihark

i have 5 different ink styles right now dueling to the death thunderdome style and it’s kind of fun ngl. #zihark nsfw under the cut.



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more shameless eternal  #zihark selfship doodles ~ i feel like there’s real emotion in my erotica in some ways now vs when i was on twit. much easier to draw sincerely with less eyeballs. nsfw

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