modern!au, #zihark selfship
i just think he's neat ~

"Krad's Art Dump 2.0" is here with all of my art from the past five years minus ~100 pieces of NDA artwork.  I started this gift last decade as a way to give back to the old internet that mentored me, and it ended up a very poignant way to archive my work.

Before you download, please be aware there are many NSFW/R18 pieces as well as potentially disturbing artwork. You are welcome to save/delete whatever you want, all I ask is you do not reshare, or use it for AI training.

Download link (1.1 GB)


Previous 2011-2020 dump: https://www.mediafire.com/file/3hqo6ltou...

last selfship / #zihark work for a bit while i catch up with projects, but i had fun with this one ~ full nsfw image under the cut :)


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i wish i could say this was inspired by an angsty encounter in RD P4 but. reality is: playing as #zihark in elden ring and thought he was hot covered in blood :)c
#fetellius

finally starting to unclog some stuff in the artistic pipes :) been doing some major level-up-ing and long projects behind the scenes which makes it a little difficult to keep things consistent.
 
also filed under: #zihark

happy birthday, and to 19 years ~ thank you always for being my Muse. ♥
#zihark

■ Your Ruin, My Ruin - Chapter 16 [ Sacrifice ]
□ https://archiveofourown.org/works/522583...
[ illustrating my #fefates Gunter/f!Corrin slowburn romance fic where they both earn their happy ending. Revelation route. ]

HOW TO MAKE A 2010's ANIME CELL IN KRITA - QUICK WALKTHROUGH


this past week, i went on a bender making a #fefates animatic(?), it ended up being a crash course in how to make realistic anime stills entirely in krita. below is a bullet-point list of critical steps for interested parties. it's not very detailed but should point you to things that helped.
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file setup
* use animation template, jp style. delete everything that isn't the white bg + the layout guides
* size: 3000px x 2118, 300dpi

drawing the cell
* generally my "thin line" style that i do roughs and ink with is a "basic 5" brush (in default krita bundle). anti-alias is turned off for crispiness. frankly any small inking pen would do.
* general things to keep in mind: use FEWEST LINES as possible. try to keep shadows also to a minimum or have them cover large simplified shapes.
* tip for cell cleanup: if you go into tool options while using the fill bucket, and under 'reference' 'obtain region with a merged copy of all layers' and the multiple fill 'fill regions only in similar color' and use the fill bucket to paste the same color everywhere you want it, makes cleanup 1000% easier
 
here's how the cell looked with a previous bg i scrapped, and also some other wip cells




drawing the background
* going to be different depending on how organic the BG is - though you'll probably always start by slapping some gradients down first
* for rocky cave texture, big fudopen with flow down to 18 (for all brushes mentioned, here's the bundle i think i got them from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI_DFuSf... )
* smudge with inkP 25 blender water as needed
* finesse stone texture with inkp 25 penpoc (incidentally my favorite chonky b/w manga inking pen)
* throw down more layers with freeze-reflect style (layer style might not be in the defaults, you might have to look for it and tick the check box on)

compositing
* watch all of this video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv4axtpn... it's not krita but it's a very in depth tutorial teaching you why anime composites look like that.
* here's the funny part.... SCREENSHOT your final merged cell+bg. this will naturally give it the 'jpg 360dpi crunch'.
* in your new composite file, add a few more freeze-reflect gradients aiming for a specific color hue. this was actually originally more a dusty brown/yellow overall but red fit better.
* below, see critical trio of layer effects:
-> copy of merged cell/bg, 50% opacity (guass blur, 15px, hard overlay layer style)
-> copy of merged cell/bg  50% opacity (guass blur, 15px, lighten layer style)
-> background - (no blur, normal layer style)
-> possibly add an "addition" gradient layer along the bottom or top if it needs it
* subtitles: my font: noto sans jp (but lots of good alternatives and research here: https://www.md-subs.com/blog/saa-subtitl... )
* at the very very end: YA GOTTA SEPARATE CHANNELS and then nudge them by a pixel left or right. i have tried every other trick to get the color bleed approach and nothing looks nearly as realistic. here's how to do it in krita https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manu...

fin!COLLAPSE

    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

#fefates , Creator Chose Not To Use Warnings
nsfw under the cut


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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

going forward, i'm uploading everything with a "Creator Chose Not To Use Warnings" policy and retroactively scrubbing tags when possible. (here, ao3, bsky, etc). I will still put sensitive content under the cut.

(nothing personal if it's a deal breaker for following; also been there.)

copypastin' a bsky thread of mine:

i've already shown this to the doujin circle, but seeing the final shop visits for the latest comic campaign per incoming domain is *fascinating*. here's the breakdown:

    bsky --------- 830
    itchio -------- 155
    kradeelav.com 115
    tumblr ------- 90
    google ------ 25
    dreamwidth - 9
    other -------- 4

a few notes:

*there was roughly equal marketing on bsky/kradeelav.com/tumblr/(mastodon!baraag).

*kradeelav.com being above tumblr (solidly no3!) shows you the power of personal websites, doesnt it?

*itchio's visits started slow but then ramped up when the comic hit the front page for a few tags.

this whole campaign was not profit focused in the least (the slim $$ after shipping/printing is mentally sorted as "seed money" for future doujin), but broad data like this is still useful for estimating where to focus for pre-orders to save on mental energy. work smarter, not harder.

why the transparency?

indie doujin/comics is horrifically niche and opaque money-wise with a lot of headwinds (to use a corporatism) right now. i don't believe in competition with your peers. i really don't. the more mental pain i can erase for somebody through knowledge sharing is a net benefit.

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

good job, heinrix. #mscfanart

heinrix, babydoll; why are you Like That.
#mscfanart

showing off some interiors of this doujin ~ old hats will remember this all got started when I was genuinely annoyed at how it felt like Gunter was the sole #fefates character who didn't have one, haha.

the longer i worked on this, the more I had fun with (dare i say?) the subversiveness of making him as an old man the focus in some incredibly sexy strips, as well as rummaging around the sheer variety of nuanced topics this ship has. i'm glad it resonated with y'all too. thank you ~ ♥

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

#fetellius #zihark wip. think i'm going to make a doujin for him next, after current projects. :) it's time. been wanting to do it since radiant dawn released. also since i'm quite happy with my inking style now and don't want to immediately change it.

For those who appreciate handsome old men, it's live! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

 『ASHES & GHOST』A Gunter/Corrin #fefates doujinshi, 60 pages. Available in two options:
- Print + digital PDF (PREORDERS OPEN UNTIL JULY 1) (25USD)
- Digital DRM-free high-resolution PDF (1USD)

Cover for my #fefates gunter/corrin doujinshi 'ashes and ghost" releasing in three days! :D

last new interior piece for the gunter/corrin doujin
#fefates

uniform fetishist very predictably stoned on warhammer for the last week, news at 11
#mscfanart

sorry in my doujin it's *both* the dirty old father figure and the naive princess who are perverts :) #fefates



nsfw under the cut

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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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petrine/ena #fetellius
fill for the toxic femslash convenience store event on ao3

    in the beginning, there can be only dying, the abyss, the first laugh.

rafiel would have some fuckin kinks.
#fetellius



influences?

READ MORE"trickster makes the world" book and this line from a different book:
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sometimes i forget that 'daddy i made a child's toy from a whip gunter' actually wielding whips in combat is only a headcanon #fefates

your honor i love him
(lt. south burning from gundam 0083)
#mscfanart

aimee, astrid, and calill chatting. experimenting with some color styles... not wholly satisfied but i like the direction.

#fetellius

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)

spoils of war
gunter/corrin, #fefates , bad ending
Creator Chose Not To Use Warnings

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i genuinely enjoy drawing my favorites as rapists... it's interesting poking at why.

that rare pleased fire-burn of 'oh this is provocative with thought. this has substance. (how is such an malicious action depicted substance?) there's a call to the darker parts of the id that recognizes kin. all of us have such potential, even as we wish otherwise.

and it's hot tbh. fuck me if i get a ladyboner from it ig.COLLAPSE

gunter being manhandled as a break :v (nsfw)
#fefates

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more WIP shots of "ashes and ghost". as always, nsfw under the cut.
#fefates




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the old man fingerfucks like a lesbian lol COLLAPSE

some dear friends were discussing 'what if FEH did aged up banners and weren't cowards' ~ #fetellius

acting like this reminds me why i loved comics in the first place. #fefates

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.

who would win, grandpa's boobs or hers
#fefates
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suddenly cranking out *ridiculously* dynamic freehand doodles is a joy that will never get old <3 #zihark

i always feel my soul is quite needy to return to drawing him after some time ... then again it's also lovely to also see stylistic improvements/changes with breaks like this ~
#zihark

#fefates

#fefates

my R18 gunter/corrin #fefates doujinshi will be available this summer! i hope you'll enjoy it.

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

#zihark

designing the rogue trader look so i can draw myself a proper portrait :3 #mscfanart

#fefates erotic strip updates since i'm so close to finishing. it :) good lord, this man is having the absolute time of his life

he's so handsome jfc
#zihark #fetellius

some screenshots from the #fefates gunter/corrin doujinshi cover i'm pretty pleased with. :3 made a breakthrough recently with coloring ~

S-rank
#fefates

Here's my guide to making comics with Krita, down to the details such as layer setup, borders, speech bubbles, and SFX.

preface: it took me at least a year to figure this process out; but once when you've figured out the system & a template, it's smooth sailing. let's use this finished spread from the selfship comic last year to go through the process:



i'm going to assume a certian level of digital program proficiency (knowing what layers are, having a general idea of what vector vs raster graphics are, etc) since otherwise this post would be a book. rest of the post under the cut; this one's going to be a long one as is.

READ MORElet's start with talking about the layers for a single page of the above comic image.
(ignore the "orbs" and "titania bubble" layers - those were oddities for this specific spread.) Going from the top downwards:



- SFX - sound effects. this is an optional layer to have if you don't have a lot of sound effects. you can use either render the sound effects by drawing them out (raster) or vector SFX; whatever you're most comfortable with. more on that below.
- frame - this is the comic page borders.
- speech bubbles - self explanatory. contains both the text inside the bubble and the bubbles themselves.
- ink - main lineart & drawing layer; self explanatory.
- tone - the shading layer.
- (deleted) ruff/sketch - this is the sketchy thumbnail layer that is imported when i first start working on each spread, and naturally gets deleted when the lineart starts looking good on its own.

so!

there's two types of digital rendering krita can do: raster (most similar to drawing with a pencil or tablet) and vector (computer draws mathematical lines and shapes and text that you can manipulate). a lot of programs fully specialize in one or the other but the killer feature of krita is it can do both on a single page; you just need separate layers depending on the rendering..

that's what this "fx" symbol stands for by the way - these are the vector layers....



... and the symbols circled in purple clue you in that they're raster layers (ink, tone, sketch) where you do the actual drawing. with me so far?

speaking of those:

borders/frame

here's what the borders layer looks like + (the print layout layer above everything in black/yellow). the print layout layer is really only useful if you're physically printing this comic (it's basically bleed/trim if you've heard of those terms, ignore this otherwise).



i really struggled with doing borders in krita until finding this tutorial. since the thing is i make a lot of last minute changes. i need to be able to move and edit borders around easily if a panel's not working for me. so the method above makes it incredibly flexible to just ... up and move one, or to make a gutter wider.

i also really need to be able to see what's behind the borders while i'm drawing it to check anatomy sometimes -- the beautiful thing is you can simply turn the layer style to "multiply" and it's effectively transparent with one click.



like this, voila!

lettering

here's the lettering layer(s) with one bubbles' text selected.



fair warning: krita is absolute ass with the text tool. it's the biggest failing but in newer versions i do believe they're slowly working on improvements. thankfully this program can do just enough to letter bubbles.

essentially, i use the same trick as the frames shown in the video above. if you slap a "layer style > stroke" on the whole "bubbles" layer, that's where that 2px black border comes from, and that layer-style-as-a-border "follows" every bubble so it's consistent.

(rule of thumb aesthetics-wise is speech bubble borders should be slightly thinner than frame borders, and on average about as wide as your lineart.)

SFX (sound effects)

technically you can hand-ink all of your SFX if vector art scares you or if you don't intend on doing much, but the vast majority of pros use vector work for efficiency. hentai/erotic work also has a lot of SFX versus other (non-NSFW) genres for the immersion factor with bodily functions.



the spread above didn't need a lot, though. as you can see it's mostly the inorganic orb clinks and then the big SHING. (i put my for-the-web-kradeelav.com signature on the same layer for laziness).

here's part of my current sfx library below just to show you what i start with for erotic strips; usually i start with some base fonts and start moving the letters around individually.



(a lot of these are redone for every project; there's some in here that are already "outdated" in my eyes.)

miscellaneous

my favorite inking brushes are from this free resource pack. my favorite halftone (shading) brushes are from this (also free).

thanks for reading! COLLAPSE

19 years ♥ #zihark

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

nailah, #fetellius

excited for the twenty year anniversary ~

been experimenting with some coloring/finishing techniques and i'm so impressed with krita's modulo layer effect ...

it's really fun studying  the mathematics behind this class of layer effects and surmising why it works so well in the above screenshot (on top of "flat" cell-shade drawing to add just enough of randomness.) i think it has to do with the logic of gradients but then the abrupt switch to the next gradient, versus one samey blob of color.

"painting" that layer effect on with a watercolor brush (introducing another level of randomness) has some serious mileage! especially if you can still eyeball the general intensity/hue.

one problem i've always had with digital drawings is how stiff and lifeless it can feel without the randomness inherent in physical paints. a lot of effort behind digital brushes is the creators deliberately re-introducing artificial randomness - but sometimes it still feels odd or not enough. wet paints and ink separate, markers fade over time, entropy is its own artisan, in a way.

#zihark #fetellius

evil fates daddy

(locked in with this strip both with the style and panels; now it's just a clean up marathon for the next three weeks.)
#fefates

# sorry you went through all of your shit gunter but i hope this comic makes up for it (blows a kiss) i think you're having fun here at least #fefates

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made a breakthrough on this #fefates hentai strip this past weekend ~

it's the first time i've really tried to blend something truly genre-oriented (hentai), genre-*defying*, and something i'm truly passionate about with eros. i think it's succeeding, actually.

some tenderness ~
filed under #zihark

the draw what you're wearing in 5 minutes meme was a remarkably cute one.

#zihark

gunter/corrin under the cut, #fefates
Creator Chose Not To Use Warnings

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(for an exchange on ao3) kal/null, #repcomm, #starwars
Creator Chose Not To Use Warnings

    kal'buir doesn't trust the kamiise to touch his boy after he'd been injured in training. patching him up is a ritual they do in private.    (among others.)

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