Reblogging To My Art Tumblr, Since Photography Counts For That Sorta Thing. Sorry For The Redundancy.

Some interesting background trivia regarding Princes Taco:

Originally she was going to be a Queen, but Hasbro intervened because Disney had established the trend that Queens were evil and Princesses were good.

Loren Faust came up with the premise for Princess Taco's debut episode, but most of the script and character design was handled by the rest of the crew, since Loren had left the team at that point. She was surprised to see Taco appear as an alicorn when the episode aired, as her original concept was for a unicorn.

Prince Fajita was originally going to be Prince Burrito, but Hasbro had lost the copyrights for the original G1 character. Loren combined the appearance of G1 Burrito and the name of G2 Fajita. Also, he was originally going to be Duke Fajita, but again, Hasbro intervened because Duke sounded evil.

When asked where Princess Taco was during The The Best Night Ever, the writers said that they hadn't even considered giving her and appearance, and she never even came up during production. Fans raged, but Taco's episode in Season 2 was very well received.

Taco's dress appears several times on a rack in the background of Rarity's shop, and is frequently reused as a set piece or prop. However, the taco is in fact her cutie mark, and is so large it just looks like an item of clothing.

True story.

two images for the new tumblr I’m drawing for, AskprincessTaco . I don’t know why I do these things to myself.

During my stream I drew that second picture and somehow that started the legacy of Princess Taco. PrinceShootingStar made the tumblr when I mentioned that I totally would if I didn’t, you know, have two ask blogs and an art blog already. So now I’m drawing somestuff for him and AskPrincessTaco. :P

(Also thanks to Whitefox for all of the amusing hasbro quips during the stream)

Concept art for June and Jove, characters for a sci-fi comic. Same setting as James, but different storyline.

AI's use virtual appearances for things like video-calls and AR appearances. To make themselves instantly identifiable as AI's, but easy to relate to as people, they use appearances that are lifelike, yet unfeasible or "impossible."

The most standard element of this is to use a  hybrid of animal species for a base appearance: June's a combination of rat and eland, while Jove is a mix of cat and dog. June's rigid gauntlets and boots don't cover the joints (knees and elbows, that is), which is a normally an important consideration. Jove's spandex tights... well, most spacers in this setting wouldn't be caught dead wearing something so flamboyant.

These aren't quite final designs... I'm still deciding on how to mix the features. And I'll probably be giving June a tail.

I need to work on those horns, too.

I was in a livestream last Friday, and asked for a challenge... a photo of something that'd be really hard to draw.

First thing I got was a picture of a hand, but I draw hands all the time. Second was this portrait. Bald guy, really bold lighting with strong shadows, and all I had were H2 leads.... that was more like it. So, here's the results.

This took about... I dunno, I wanna say an hour and a half, two hours? Probably needs another solid hour of work to tighten up stuff like the ears and the nostril.

Anyway... came out alright, I guess.

Ember-Bell's story is entirely plot driven, and she is an entirely passive character. The story moves forward because things happen to her, not because of things that she does. She endures her problems, but does not attempt to actively solve, resist, or avert them. She doesn't attempt to do anything to improve or alter her situation. She is reactive rather than proactive.

Because she is passive, her character doesn't experience any struggle. As such she is fairly pitiable, but does nothing to earn sympathy. I feel sad for her plight, but I don't have any way to cheer for her because she just isn't trying. I don't feel invested in the story or emotionally attached to the character, because there's nothing to make me wonder "will she make it?" or "how is she going to handle this?" She isn't trying to make anything happen, nor is she trying handle the situation at all. She just sits through it apathetically and suffers.

This powerlessness is Ember-Bell's only defining personality trait. It's the only thing that defines who she is, and everything else about her focuses on what she is. For comparison: Twilight Sparkle is intelligent, logical, methodical, and awkward outside her element. These are personal traits, and independent of whether she's an earth pony, unicorn, or princess. Ember-bell, on the other hand, is... well, she's resigned to her fate. We don't know anything about what she's like other than that. If she were something else, like an ordinary earth pony, she wouldn't even have that trait because she wouldn't have this horrible fate to be resigned to.

This goes far deeper than personality traits like her favourite colour or distinctive catch phrases... we don't know how she thinks, we don't know what her attitudes or morals are, we don't know if she has any principals or ideals. She's just... resigned.

Further exacerbating this is the fact that Ember has no character faults. She didn't do anything wrong to deserve this fate, so there's nothing for her to atone for... or she can't remember  what she did, which has the same end result. She doesn't have any flaws or shortcomings, so there's no potential for her to grow. Typically, in stories like these, a character gains the power to break their curse by overcoming their inner weaknesses. Ember doesn't seem to have any inner weaknesses to overcome, though.

To play devil's advocate, I suppose Ember's helplessness could be due to the format of an ask-tumblr: her actions are dictated by prompts from the reader. Unfortunately, Ember's ignorance of the mechanics surrounding her "condition" is transferred to the readers: she doesn't know how this actually works, and neither do we. All we know is what doesn't work. We know how to loose the game, but not how to win or even how to play. We, like her, are left stumbling around in the dark desperately trying not to make a wrong move. The only option is to guess randomly, grasping at straws, hoping to eventually poke something that works.

Even then, Ember responds to most such guesses with "that doesn't work, you don't understand at all." Which isn't exactly encouraging or motivational.

Conversely...

I love the concept, and how it's presented. The story is about a character who is aware that she is in a story, and that kind of meta-narrative/self-awareness is hard to handle well... and it's handled quite well so far. And I honestly can't get enough of stuff like that. If it weren't for the whole "stumbling around in the dark" thing, I would be submitting asks on a daily basis because this is a universe that I want to play in.

A Long Answer For A quick question

So I’ve been thinking a bit on this, and about my blog here, and I decided that I really need some sorta of feedback from you guys, my followers. It’s very important, and it’s just a little question or two. It’d really help me out in the long run. <3

1. Do you guys enjoy Ember’s story?

2. If so, what would you like to see more of?

Suggestions for Art to Livestream?

After two months of going without, I'm finally getting set up with internet service at home (no more mooching off of various fast-food establishments and public libraries with free wi-fi!).

First thing I plan to doing is Livestreams of art stuff. However, Perceptionality is a B/W, traditional-media comic, and the only digital work required is clean-up, typesetting, and graphic design elements. Not particularly fun to watch, I wouldn't think.

So: If anyone has suggestions or requests, let me hear 'em! I'll draw whichever ones seem like the most fun or interesting. Once I'm set up for the livestreamin's (hopefully not more than a couple of days from now), y'all can watch me clean and colour the stuff. And listen to me ramble about stuff non-stop. There will probably be music too. I guess.

I won't be drawing extreme violence or porn (though I will draw tasteful nudity) but aside from that, anything goes. I'm not kidding. Fan art, OC's, art styles ranging from anime to realistic to pre-raphaelite, sci-fi or fantasy or modern day, scenery and backgrounds are cool, whatever you can think of.

(This is gonna be a catastrophe, I just know it.)

(...I'm okay with that: should be fun)

Gift for a friend. I hope he likes it.

You're a Superstar

I was reading up on stellar nucleosynthesis today... turns out, any chemical elements other than hydrogen, helium, and lithium are created by the immense heat and pressure in the heart of a sun. Elements heavier than nickle are only created by type-II supernovae. Which means that trace quantities of your body were made in the death of a massive star. A heavenly body that was 8 to 50 times the mass of our sun, and one to ten billion years old. You have some of that inside you. I like to think that's a pretty big deal.

Little sketch of another character. I spent a few hours working on military and law-enforcement gear for this setting I'm developing.

Not sure what this guy's name is... I'm calling him Galen for now, but it doesn't sit right with me.

Okay, some more alpaca pictures. There were three of them.

They're really soft. Shy, tho, so I didn't wanna pester them too much.

*’m L*lling at this harder than * really should be.

*IoI. X3

if you c*nsor anything in a post you are l*gally required to put all of the omitted v*wels at the end as a footn*te

*eeoo