💌 Comments

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🗻 The Wasped World

I effing love this! This is your best writing yet and I've been waiting to feel better to tackle it.

Your writing always has a good flow, very poetic, but this really feels like proper storytelling. I don't know if that makes sense...

I love the lore. I adore the idea of using cinchers and corsets in the place of magic wands. I keep thinking about the fights in the first Dr. Storage, and an army of contortionist using their bodies instead of their hands would be brilliant.

On to the next one. I'm so excited!
-tbj

Haha, thank you so much! I didn't know it was my best story yet but for me this one is important because it finally features the new concept I had for waist-cinching and contortion, with them being actual important practices in this world. So I guess this story kind of splits the lore to before and after, in a way :D

Yeah, I'm usually inspired more by the format of short stories like "The Thousand and One Night" or the tales about Robin Hood, etc, than long ass novels. Novels are great but it's not something I can do, I guess it's like powerlifting, there are world class athletes breaking records and then there are regular fit people. Here I tried to lift a bit more and span it across several chapters, but I think it only worked for 3-4 chapters, the later chapters are not so well connected and just talk about their own thing ^^;

I'm very happy to know you liked the lore, hopefully it will be fun to expand with more ideas over time! :D

🌌 Mega Backbender

I can compliment the pose or the subject, because they're awesome. I can compliment the details, like the sweat on his back...

But his face is beautiful. Those eyes are just captivating. This is amazing.
-tbj

Thank you so much!! You know, it's fun to imagine living in a kind of world where this stuff just hangs in public galleries and professional critics in all seriousness say the pose is awesome! I always felt like I was born on a wrong planet, so thank you for taking me to the right place, if only for a moment :D

I'm trying my best to improve faces and not ruin them. Lately I'm using some ai tools for enhancements and those approaches keep getting more and more organic. Like, I actually used some technology to scan my old artworks of Yasha and then used that in the process of making the face, so the eyes, nose etc, have a good percentage of real Yasha DNA, so to speak ;D

⛅ Angel of Contortion

There's a sense of scale here that I missed at first. I really love their scale compared to the clouds. It just adds something extra that's better somehow.
-tbj

🗿 Marble Snake

Just... how. Imagining this isn't impossible, but then to figure out how to represent it is amazing. It's just beautiful and fun.
-tbj

NJ 3.2.1

Wait... but... you didn't... he doesn't... I'm going to pout because this is such a great picture. I love that you aimed a spotlight at what isn't there. Hahaha
-tbj

👨‍🌾 Cabin on a Farm

I can't stop looking. It looks so natural...
-tbj

🧸 Teddybear Forest

That was... awesome. All the way around, brilliant.
-tbj

📙 Next Generation

Awww... That was super sweet. I love it!
-tbj

💤 Please Stand By...

That's a hell of a security lock. Not a fingerprint, now you not only have to know, but then be able to perform, the right contortion? So becoming more flexible arguably is a hacking skill?
-tbj

🐘 Rubber Elephant

*gulp*
-tbj

🎛️ Modern Ventilation System

Not her. Nobody should be reminded she exists. She's just awful. I remember her once saying she didn't need acting lessons because it would interfere with the purity of her work. I saw Suicide Squad and Valerian. Reality begs to differ with her.

I tried to look up who I'm thinking about, and she kept coming up, unfortunately. I want to say the actress I'm thinking of was an early to mid aughts, probably TV and dumb movies...

I tried doing an image search and one suggestion was Natasha Udovenko, who I forgot I was madly in love with...

Maybe I'm thinking of Emma Roberts? I don't think so, though. The actress I'm thinking of is a dead ringer for this Erika.

Love you all
-tbj

I had this idea to blend together several celebrity faces to see if I could make characters that looked consistent but didn't 100% resemble any existing celebs. Unfortunately, it didn't work out as planned as the results were still pretty random. But I still liked how this one picture turned out and decided to finish it. And that's pretty much the only time I used this celebrity-mixing method. I've already found a better way to make consistent characters using LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation), which is specifically designed for achieving consistency AND it allows to scan my previous artworks as a dataset, so I can now make Erika look like my own pictures of her (haven't tried her yet but I did have success with Yasha and Andrzej). But even though this technique didn't work out as planned, I still thought the picture was worth polishing up! Erika or not, she made me thought of a funny story :D

🗺️ Map of Yunia (2022)

Jesus... Six hours?

Yeah. Totally worth it. This is awesome. :)
-tbj

I'm glad it looks good already! But to be honest I should do it again sometime, the technology is a dozen times better now and I have a hundred more tricks up the sleeve! :D

🧸 Teddybear Dreams

Now I've got the song "Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around" in my head... Martin loves his teddies. Martin in a teddy with a teddy in him?
-tbj

⛲ Elbend

It's like a Thomas Kink-ade.

I'll sit down and be quiet.
-tbj

🌵 Al-Hedsit

There's so much going on in this pic that it almost feels like a Where's Waldo.

I was just explaining to someone a bit of hidden story in the Zelda games about the Gerudo. They're clearly Arabic inspired but their first song, "Gerudo Valley", is Flamenco. It makes sense if you know that the Moors were persecuted and forced to Andalusia, along with Jews, Gypsies, and Gitanos. Flamenco is a blending of all those styles. It could explain why the Gerudo are exiled to such a harsh desert where nobody else wants to be, why they have been referred to as "thieves"... It points to a dark history in Hyrule that's only referenced in passing by a musical style of one song.

That's what a lot of your stuff is like when you go crazy with the detail. :)
-tbj

Wow, that's some really interesting insight into the Gerudo and their connection to Flamenco music! I had no idea about the historical background behind it, but it definitely adds another layer of depth to the Zelda universe. It's always fun to discover new connections and meanings 😊📚🎵

🌵 Al-Hedsit detail 1

To me, it's that he's clearly not dressed or in any way prepared to be in such a harsh environment, and there's nowhere apparent that he's heading, but he's so confident that he has to be doing something with great purpose.

I also love that the path looks like it's a dry riverbed that's normally used as a road. Like, maybe it floods once in a blue moon? Maybe that's his purpose? He's going to bring the water somehow?

You do enigma super well, and I really appreciate that you seldom explain it. We don't always need mysteries to be solved. One of the biggest letdowns ever was when I learned how Teflon sticks to the pan, but is a non-stick surface. It was way more exciting to not know.
-tbj

Thank you for your thoughtful comment on my work. I appreciate your insight into the enigma aspect of it and agree with you that leaving some things unknown can be exciting. Your analysis of the figure in the painting and the path is spot on. It would be interesting to see the students of magic revive the riverbed one day and use it for travel by boat and swimming. Thank you again for your comment, it means a lot to me!

🌵 Al-Hedsit detail 2

Of all your world building, I love your dialogue the most. Seriously. You always do such brilliant dialogue.

I love that they look like shitty, bickering, kids. It's such a great look at what happens when nobody's looking, kind of thing... But the dialogue is still the stand out. It's that good.
-tbj

Oh wow, thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed the dialogue and the characters' banter. I had a lot of fun writing their interactions, and it's great to know that it comes across well. I appreciate your kind words! 😊💬

😎 Desert Elves

I would love to see you do more with this setting. I've been playing way too much Zelda lately... I'm 320 hours into Tears Of The Kingdom and not even trying to fight Ganon yet...

I could see you really getting into world building again and spending some time with these characters - before you totally start over again and redesign everything from the ground up, with new lore. ;)
-tbj

Hey, thanks for your comment! I'm glad you're enjoying Tears of the Kingdom, and I totally understand the urge to sink hundreds of hours into a game like that. World building is definitely something I enjoy, and I have been thinking about how I can further develop this setting with these characters. One idea that's been floating around in my head for a while is creating a sort of Wikipedia-like thing (Yunileaks?). However, it's still just a vague concept without any concrete plans.

📟 Shinobi Kid Screenshot?!

First of all, I want to apologise for missing an obvious reference when I was being an idiot about a Yuni-branded console... It should be a 44.44 bit system.

Did you ever play the Dragon Ball fighting game for Super Famicom? The one feature it had that I've never seen again (I'm sure other games have, I just don't know of them - I stopped playing fighting games at Street Fighter 2 Turbo Champion Ultimate Deluxe Mega Rainbow Handjob Edition and Samurai Shodown 2) was you could move beyond the bounds of the "screen"... Meaning it would split the screen to indicate you weren't right in front of each other any more, and you could unload with long range attacks. I could see this fighting game having those kind of really interesting features that never caught on for some reason.

I'm obsessed with anachronistic, obscure, games and technology. I've always wanted to make my own version, but I'm not talented enough in anything to tackle any aspect of it.

You at least need to do their "bounce" animations. You know, when the character's not moving, and their idle is to kind of bounce on the balls of their feet? Or like how Bridget did that little dance of his...
www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/bridgetspriteani.gif
-tbj