Room 215

PIXEL ART: Icons

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 08:40:09 GMT

Hey look making-of animations of both of them.

I went back later and added Kristoph's animation plus Trucy's Mr. Hat (after reverting her hair to hatless) so you don't see those in the animations. Also I made these a few days ago. I've been tardy with my updates. Why is it I can't run a deviantART and an art blog concurrently? It's like I always end up updating one more than the other.

EDIT: Ha ha ha oh shit 12 days since my last update? Wow. That's worse than I thought. I need to really step up the pace here.

PIXEL ART: Sushi

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 09:24:14 GMT

Wow have I been slacking lately. Kind of hectic... and I'm as closed off and moody as usual. Current project: alienating brother til he realizes what a ginormous ass he is. Have a feeling it isn't happening. He thinks I'm mad at him because he nagged at me once over something petty a few days ago, while in fact I am mad at him because of the senseless insults and his superiority complex. He is a spoiled child.

I told myself I wouldn't write about personal matters here but I guess with a livejournal it kind of leaks in. Hrrhrr.

I picked up a sushi cookbook today, so I got inspired. I also picked up a book about ocean life, so I'm going to try and pixel some more fish sometime (I'll try to do things other than jellyfish). I want to branch out into different areas and challenge myself to do things out of my element - I guess I'm starting with food and weird deep sea creatures!

...I just realized that picking a book up on sushi and a book on sea life at the same time is kind of morbid, wow. It's... it's really a general Japanese cuisine book, I picked it up for art reference more than anything...

PIXEL ART: Comb jelly

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 14:21:56 GMT

Made a comb jelly. Pretty happy with it, actually, even if I referenced a lot.

PIXEL ART: Odeko, Irukandji

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 07:54:58 GMT

Odeko bouncing. I made this on the 23rd but forgot to post it up.

Bouncing Zantarni character.

Zantarni avatar edit. Feels kind of ridiculous, this is the first time I've done anything close to 'dolling' in probably over 6 months... I didn't make the hair or the base body, that's from Zantarni, all I made was the clothes (the stockings/skirt/jacket/undershirt/hair thing). Borrowed a palette from an old game.

New year's resolutions:
1. Finish my adoptable project.
2. Get a backbone.
3. Write something lasting at least 5(!) chapters.
4. Stop feeling worthless.
Edit: 5. Draw or pixel something every day!

OOOHH MYY GOODDD

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 14:24:24 GMT

THIS TOOK FOREVER

AAAHH it's Solitary Cell 13 and I spent like three days on it and I'm really proud of it and it's probably my best work yet

BOOKS

BRICKS

PIXEL ART: More crap

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:55:56 GMT

Whoop, almost missed the midnight deadline. Still trying to keep it at 1 a day, though the ones yesterday probably shouldn't have counted...

Random crappractice.

PIXEL ART: Orb recolors

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:27:45 GMT

Recolors of the pretty shiny orb from yesterday night.

PIXEL ART: Worthless generic balls

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 07:55:34 GMT

"I've been playing Disgaea for a while now, it's getting pretty late... wait, have I done pixel art today? Ahhh, SHIT, it's like 30 minutes to midnight! Think, think... oh, I know! I'll make the most generic pixelballs ever!"

Just... crap to try and not break this 1-a-day streak of mine. Everybody loves shading-balls.

In varieties 'generic brown', 'pretty shiny', 'rusty metal of some sort', and 'skin flesh'!

PIXEL ART: Katamari & Prince, flowers

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:57:12 GMT

Some stuff I did referencing random exotic flowers on Flickr. I like doing water droplets and want to try more of them. The leaf underneath the branch is my failed attempt at making droplets on a leaf. Doesn't look so good.

Katamari Damacy! I dunno what possessed me to make this, but it was definitely fun.

PIXEL ART: Krisgaea

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:28:20 GMT

Version with spoilers for Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney case 1

Kind of reminds me of Pokemon more than it reminds me of Disgaea, but yeah. Studied the Disgaea style a lot for this. I really love the style of the series, especially the colors used. So I might make a little series out of these!

PIXEL ART: Untitled

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:30:57 GMT

Stuff done while my net was out. Just practicing different things, really. Both were referenced off images on my harddrive, hurr.

I referenced this for the water.
Eyed this more loosely for the feather. (If you can even tell that's a feather...)

Now what do I do: stay up or keep drawing (well, pixeling)? Admittedly the latter's pretty god damn tempting. Slept really awful yesterday (slept vividly more than anything, really - dreams were so vivid it felt like I had barely slept at all) and then even worse the day before. Not looking forward to sleep if it's going to be another night of that.

Feels like I'm going to toss my cookies, though. I don't think that whipped cream liked me...

Oh yeah, um...

Christmas To-do:
odeko
cinnamin kaori
deadly
reddy
bombardier
moltie
shibuki
apoc
miako
mina-pudding
fufu

Plus cuttlefish or something for Kyuu since he asked me to. But I'm getting paid for that.

Might see if Joy wants something. Kind of lost contact since she left MPL. I know there's more people I forgot to put here but I really don't know how I'm going to get all of that done before Christmas as is, plus manage a shop. Maybe I'm taking too much on my plate?

I like doing the Christmas stuff more than the stuff at my shop though, because I'm doing it from scratch so I have an opportunity to do different styles and stuff. Variety, you know? I have to keep a certain level of consistency (and there isn't very much room for variation) when it comes to my shop.

That doesn't mean I'm going to send Miako some abstract set of blobs for Christmas, but yeah. Reddy's present was a good example of me trying new things (though that came out kind of weird, she liked it). I learned a little bit about lighting. And that bricks, oddly enough, are not as hard as I remember.

PIXEL ART: Savoy

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:40:56 GMT

MERRY CHRISTMAS REDDY aaa.

I am very very on the fence about this. I tried new things. But I should not try new things with random people's gift art because then I will feel very very nervous about the outcome.

PIXEL ART: Kurl, Bombardier's characters, bears

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:43:37 GMT

I don't remember the names of these characters but they were really fun to draw! A Christmas gift for a really nice person on Gaia.

This was, um... weird. Another bouncy for the shop. But it was good practice! There was a version with the hat moving but he didn't like it as much as the static version. :(

And this was a gift for another friend! She wanted a bearhat. There's some versions with text but they look crap on black bgs.

The Great Big TL;DR Pixel Tutorial

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 19:55:58 GMT

TGBTLDRPT for short, which is the sound of a tetris block falling on a man. It's also sort of a walkthrough on how I do pixels, and goes through some of my methods.

I would like to show you how to make pixels, because people have asked me how, and I feel this accurately sums up some of my techniques and stuff. Note that I am not a professional and this is probably filled with wildly inaccurate misinformation, but you may gain something from it!

A rough sketch is born. This tends to be what my initial sketches look like - crap, basically. Sometimes I'll do an entire face like this before cleaning it up, other times I'll do things like the curve of the jaw, clean that up, do the eyes, clean those up, do the hair, clean that up to keep it more tidy and help me figure out which lines are which. A reference picture is nearby to make sure I don't screw up things too bad.

I should probably show you my reference picture:

This is Kristoph Gavin, he's an attorney from the video game Apollo Justice, and this lovely sprite is from Court Records!

I'm not too exact with these sketches because a lot of things will be changed in the cleanup, but yeah.

Whoo! Things are smoothed out. I corrected his glasses to make the lenses more consistent and added some minor details (like the curls of his drill-hair side-ponytail). I don't add too much detail yet but I'm getting there. It's unclear what exactly I'm doing yet (I have a vague idea, but vague ideas are just that - vague).

For a more chibi style I go for wide and round faces. For characters with glasses it's easy to ignore doing the eyes entirely if you really want to, by not drawing them in and instead just making it look like light's bouncing off the glasses.

I'd like to pretend I'm being as lazy with that as I am with most other things, but this was my intention this time, so.

The biggest thing to note about pixel lineart is that you want to have smooth lines. This is a big thing. Irregular lines have their place, but for the most part bodies, objects, random circles and what have you are made up of smooth curves.

The 'easy' way to manage this is to use a simple method I often employ in curving lines, like say the top of Kristoph's head, where smooth lines are generated by tapering the line wider and wider by using an increasing amount of pixels. That sounds overly complicated but really it's not! Let me give you an example.

As you can see, this curved line has one pixel, then two, then three, then four - then as it tapers back, it goes three, two, and one again. It doesn't always have to be so exact, as you can go one, two, two, five, eighteen, three, two (similar to the top of his head, there) and still get a reasonably smooth product, but the theory is to graduate up when making a semi-straight line in a curve and then when you curve, graduate down to smaller amounts of pixels, all the while avoiding irregular patterns like one, two, one, three, three, one, two, five, three. This sort of wide-short-wide-short pattern creates an irregular line like what I've outlined here:

Irregular lines will have their place, but practicing this method will help you out with making smoother curves. Experiment.

And one more note to top off this rant: When it comes to lines, try avoiding putting too many lines right next to each other. Say you had an arm right next to a piece of hair, so the seperate lines of those two objects were right next to each other - those one-pixel wide black lines would look like a two-pixel black line due to their proximity. This provides an unappealing effect because that stands out from the rest of the one-pixel lines! Get it? This annoying effect can be lessened by changing the line color, but line color is a personal preference.

Getting somewhere now. Part of the torso, the arms (and the hands because they become little stubs in this chibi style), and the mouth are done. Using squarer edges for clothing can provide a stiffer look which is great for suits, you can see that at the bottom of his torso, which is what will become his coat. I edited his hair a bit to make it look like it's protruding less, as that was looking kind of funny with the torso added (the hair is too long in the first place, but that's chibi stylization for you).

A lot of times when I'm doing a body, I'll draw the body before I add the actual clothing. This isn't always the case, but allows me to get the basic shapes down - then I'll add in details, etc.

You can see a tiny little cheat for the problem I suggested in the last step, which is the two-pixel-thick effect from putting two lines too close to each other. I pixeled his arm so close to his hair that the line is the same (alternatively you can say the arm is just hidden behind the hair)! Yay!

I went ahead and did most of his coat, plus his legs. A few things to note with clothing: always pay attention to detail. Real clothing has things like buttons, seams, pockets, wrinkles of course - many people forget seams and other things that provide a simple lifelike feel to a piece of art. Pay attention to what you're referencing, if you're drawing a specific character, because you might notice things you didn't see before.

Also, don't forget that clothing is not skintight. Well, not all of it. Most clothing will hang at least a little loose on the form, so sleeves won't conform entirely to the wrist, they'll hang off a little. And so on. It's easy to just make all clothing one static line in pixels, but simple things like a loose sleeve can make it feel more realistic.

And you can't be afraid to change your art spur of the moment. Something annoying you? Scrap that part and redraw it. I redid his feet - too uniform in shape, they didn't quite feel like pudgy chibi feet. I made his coat slightly shorter, and made the aforementioned pudgy chibi feet. Feels more natural.

A few very minor changes such as seams and corrections on the shirt. Don't forget that seams are part of the fabric and, as the fabric wrinkles, so too does the seam.

I leave most tiny tiny details like buttons, his badge, and, in this case, his ribbon out because those are going to be done in tiny 1-pixel lines that might get confusing if I put them in now in black. I like to color everything first then add that kind of thing in.

Speaking of which, it's COLORIN' TIME!

Which part you color first is really up to you. Usually I lay some flats down, solid colors that give me an idea of what color goes where, then I start shading; I tend to shade the face first because it's an easy area to do if you get a good feel for what faces are shaded like.

...Well, you can't see shit now, so it's time for a ZOOM IN:

...And right now it looks like crap. Part of the reason is that this is the first layer of shading, which is light, and its purpose is to serve as

A. a guide for me to know where to put down darker shading
and B. a transition between the regular skintone and the darker shading, making them look more smooth and blended because there's a color inbetween

This shading looks a little odd - normally I would shade the left cheek exactly like the right, but Kristoph's character art has the left half of his face more shaded than his right, so I'm going with a style that emulates that.

Points to note:
1. subtle shading to show the eyelids
2. shading under the hair - something many artists forget, but is very important, because the hair is above the face and casts a shadow like anything else would
3. when in a more chibi style, I try to shade at the bottom of the face in a way that makes the cheeks more pronounced and rounded looking, because who doesn't love cutesy pinchable cheeks?
4. shading under the glasses
5. in a chibi style, there is essentially no nose (in this case), so for the most part the shading acts as if it doesn't exist
6. the rule from step 2 about smooth lines can certainly apply here and it's good to have smooth, round lines in shading, but it's not always necessary

Shading a face is relatively simple because there are parts of your face that will stick out and parts that will not. Feel around your face; you can feel things that protrude more than others, like your nose, the top of your cheeks (under your eyes), your brow, your forehead (to an extent - foreheads are a bit flat but catch light), your eyes, your lips, your chin. Meanwhile there's the dips in your face like your philtrum (that little divot between your nose and lips), the spot between your bottom lip and chin, your lower cheeks (this is less noticeable on some people, more noticeable on very skinny people or people with defined faces), the area around your eyes (especially between them and the bridge of your nose)...

Point is, parts that protrude are just that - they stick out more and as a result catch more light. Parts that do not are going to catch less light and will be darker. This is a fundamental rule, and it's simple. It all sounds very complicated when you list it off, but you don't have to shade ALL of it- I'm not going to include the philtrum in most of my pixels and you probably won't include it in most of yours either. You WILL get used to shading the planes of the face eventually. This is why I start with the face so much, it's a common thing I draw and therefore it's natural and easy to go through shading it. The points catching light here are the forehead, the eyelids, the cheeks, and the lips (sort of - there's light above and below the mouth which is supposed to simulate the lips but it's not that obvious).

If you just shade mindlessly around the edges of your face (or anything for that matter) I'm going to come over to your house and beat you with a two-by-four.

Here we go! Darker shading.

And a zoom-in again:

I added more shading in the top left around his forehead because it felt too blank. You can see spots where I've added dark shading now; you shouldn't go overboard with dark shading or it'll look too dark, but areas I've chosen to add to it include (sparsely) under the glasses, the darker portion of his face (the left), and the parts where is hair is casting a shadow. I made the shading on his left cheek more significant to match his sprite.

The darker shading is a little bit of a dark grey orange here - and that's okay, but my personal preference for shading is to use warmer, saturated red tones, to make the skin feel more lifelike. But there's a wide variety of different skintones and it depends on the character in question, the artist's preference, and the situation. I've gone with these colors because it's the palette his sprite uses. While this can be considered lazy (and, as much as I hate to admit it, sometimes is on my part), it can provide a more accurate feel if you're drawing a particular character for you to colordrop off a reference of said character as opposed to picking out colors yourself. You might want to avoid colordropping for a while if you're starting out, and instead try picking your own colors to see what you can come up with, and get practice with picking colors (it's far more important than it sounds).

A few things to note:
1. You don't have to add simply dark tones while shading skin. In fact, you can provide a healthy or even shiny look by adding lighter tones, even if it's just to add a shine to the cheeks and brow. Experiment. I keep a lot of my stuff minimalistic, which brings me to my next point -
2. Less colors can provide a more cartoony/stylized look. It obviously depends on your style, and dithering can make something with two colors look complicated, but different coloring styles will look better with certain kinds of lineart (my blocky, low-color style might look better on a chibi, whereas it might not look as impressive on a larger piece).
3. You can add more dark tones if needed, but try not to use too many colors. Sure, you can use a lot of colors, but the point is to use colors that count instead of a ton of shades where you can barely tell the difference between one and the other. Smaller pieces don't necessarily need that many colors, and using a lot of them can make things look very awkward! It might make the shading stand out weird or look unusually dramatic. If you find yourself using a lot of colors because you're having trouble making your shading show up, you should try using fewer colors but making them darker (or lighter if it's a light tone) so they show up more instead of compensating with a lot of different colors.

If this seems hard to take in, don't worry - it's a lot of stuff you get the hang of from practice.

We seem to be zooming in a lot.

One of the amateur mistakes I see most is with hair. Hair is generally intimidating as hell. I know this, and it's okay, it's intimidating to everyone. But it's not as hard as it seems. You don't want to make it too blocky; hair is made up of individual strands and there's some simple ways to show this. What I generally do is shade evenly around some areas then use one-pixel-wide strands to give the appearance of individual hairs, as you can see in the zoom-in.

More exaggerated anime styles can have more blocky styles of shading, and some odd anime hairstyles might look better with it - but don't get lazy with it. You can't avoid practicing hair and you DO need to do it regardless of how hard it may seem.

I disobeyed the palette here! Oh well. I don't like the weird dark yellow color in Kristoph's sprite for the hair shading, so I tend to go for a more sandy blond color.

I don't really have that much advice to give here, because this is mostly a matter of my own stylization. Hair has a shine. I generally do mine by adding a light color across the bangs (with a small amount on his side ponytail here).

Altered his glasses color a bit, but the big difference here is his clothing. As you can see I added some shading, and now it looks all pretty! Sort of. I disobeyed the palette again (this is making me look horribly lazy with skintones) as I felt the coat colors given were too grey, which may or may not be true, but I altered it anyway.

How you shade clothes depends on the clothes that are involved. An almost universal feature of clothing is wrinkles and creases, formed naturally by movement or from leaving your clothes laying around too much and letting your cats sleep on them. On tiny pixels, creases and so forth will be harder to show, but you can see how I've shown some wrinkles in the fabric in the sleeves.

Another thing to consider is the character's body type. The pecs of the average muscular male show through some clothing in some manner, which is why there's shading around his waist under his pectoral muscles, as this coat is rather snug and fits to his body. Make them too pronounced and your man will look more like a woman, but it's something to consider!

The seams in the pants have a small wrinkle in them and I've shaded appropriately. On clothing, usually one side of the seam will protrude a little more than the other, which is why there's a line of light color on the right side next to the seam on his jacket (under the pocket). That side is sticking up more and so it will catch light.

It also helps it stand out more!

A bunch of fun little details that didn't need their own step. The sleeve of his undershirt is showing at his wrists a bit - I added suit buttons (and cuff buttons) plus his badge. Then shading for his (under)shirt and shoes, and his neck ribbon. One thing to note is that you don't always have to use a bunch of colors; in fact, a lot of pixel communities try to use the least amount of colors possible in an image by using the same color for multiple parts of the image. You don't have to follow those restrictions unless you want to (though they're a good challenge to improve your skill), but it's fun to try and do so. Some examples:

The same color used for the highlights on his hair is the same color I used on part of his glasses.
The same color used for shading the undershirt was used to shade the shoes.
The same color used for the suit buttons is the color used for his badge (...though that's not really of note).

Okay, so that's not very many examples. But you get the idea. Colors you use on parts of the image can be used on other parts of a similar color, rather than using unnecessary extra colors. Keep it in mind!

Almost done. The shading is complete, however...

At this point you can change the color of your lines! Black lines create a distinct look but they might not be what you're looking for. In this case, you can edit them to your liking. To pick line colors, I generally pick whatever the color is of the thing I'm lining then make it several shades darker (and sometimes a bit greyer if the color is particularly saturated). For his china blue suit, I used a dark blue. Simple!

You know how I said you shouldn't be afraid to change things? Well, still very true. Shit happens, even if you're way far into the shading stage. So don't be afraid to, say, change the expression entirely if it wasn't close to your original vision. Or make the skin lines a little darker.

If Shit Happens and you find yourself needing to redraw a part, don't be afraid to redo the shading too, you might have to for it to look good. I had to retool the shading on his cheeks to make the new mouth look right.

Pro tip: If you add a single white dot on each cheek (making them shiny and automatically cute), your pixel will become at least 10% cuter, guaranteed! But you probably shouldn't milk this as much as I do.

And it's done!

What have we learned? Well, I learned that I ramble too much on simple matters. Hopefully you learned SOMETHING from this. Thanks for sloughing through it!

PIXEL ART: b e a n e r e l l a

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 09:50:03 GMT

This was fun to make! I have other versions but this is my favorite so I'm posting it. Yeah, she has a mustache. A lot of women like mustaches on their gaia avatars for some reason, I think to give it more black. I've never been that into the way it looks, though my own avatar is sporting a jaunty beard right now thanks to a gift from somebody. Gift beard.

Music notes weren't animated at first but a friend prodded me into it and I'm glad I did it.

And hey, almost over my cold! I think...

Also wow that pixel looks weird on a black background. Whoops.

PIXEL ART: Kyuubi no Yoko

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:04:48 GMT

More bouncing pixels for the shop. The rose petals were tedious and he's probably going to want me to edit them. He's paying me 50k so who am I to complain?

Evidently I need to stop working on white backgrounds and start working on transparent ones. I could save myself some time, but I'm not sure how much.

PIXEL ART: 8-bit time

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 13:52:22 GMT

Aaaa my throat... I hope I feel better when I woke up, but chances are I'm just going to feel worse...

"Mirror's Edge 8-bit"

Done from scratch as an experiment to see what Mirror's Edge might look like as a Nintendo game. I'm pretty happy with it... though the game doesn't look very fun like this. :(

"Phoenix Wright I"

This was not done from scratch, simply a silly edit for this request. With Apollo, Phoenix, Kristoph and Edgeworth in a Final Fantasy I style. Edgeworth and Kris were both pretty tough - oh, and I forgot Kristoph's glasses. Whoopsie. Doubt I could've done them with that palette anyhow, so oh well!

Apollo's a warrior, Phoenix is a .. I think I modeled him off the thief, Kristoph a monk or whatever it was, and Edgeworth a red mage. Does that say anything about their personalities? No, I just edited the first screenshot I found on Google.

I didn't have the font on hand so I had to do some of the letters myself.

PW fanfic / You're What?

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:54:14 GMT

De-anoning for this I guess.

Title: You're What?
Series: Phoenix Wright
Rating: I guess PG-13 for implied gay sex and relationships
Pairing: Apollo/Klavier with a secondary implied pairing
Summary: Apollo storms out of the closet.
Warnings: BIG SPOILERS FOR ACE ATTORNEY 4. Slash (homosexuality).
Notes: Done for the Phoenix Wright Kink Meme. Original prompt here. "Apollo and Klavier are in a relationship, but it's super secret. Like, NOBODY except them know. Anyway, they decide to tell eveybody (maybe Klavier doesn't want to keep running around behind their friends' backs or something). And when Apollo tells Phoenix and Trucy (they're pretty much his family and he thinks they should know) that he's gay...

They are genuinely shocked. (But accepting!!)"
Wordcount: 568

Maybe he should have told them more casually. Getting Trucy and Mr. Wright to sit down with him and have a 'family talk' was incredibly nerve-wracking; he was getting more anxious by the second with them staring curiously at him, their gazes inquiring. But it was now or never... despite the lump in his throat that wouldn't go away no matter how many times he tried to swallow it. He couldn't just say 'nevermind' now, or they (and Klavier) would never let him hear the end of it.

"I'm..." He grimaced. His voice had suddenly reduced itself to a squeak. "g... g..."

"Going to the park?" Trucy suggested helpfully after a moment of Apollo's stuttering. "Going to the beach?"

"Going to quit your profession and become a pianist like me?"

Apollo squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm gay!"

The two were silenced. And rather blank looks of shock and confusion ensued.

Apollo blushed. Yep, should've told them more casually. It would have been less stress for both of them...

"...F-for Klavier. I mean, we're together."

That didn't seem to help. Trucy's mouth was a wide O of absolute surprise. Phoenix, on the other hand, had his face contorted awkwardly in something that was either disgust or him trying not to laugh, he couldn't tell.

He looked away bashfully, rubbing his cheeks, feeling stupid now. The only reason he'd been convinced into this was because Klavier had told him they probably suspected it already! He and Klavier spent so much time together lately, after all... "I... thought it was obvious."

There was an odd snort, and Apollo looked back up - it seemed Phoenix, indeed, was fighting off laughter. "Hmm... I used to joke with Miles about passing the torch onto you, but I didn't think I would pass this on, too."

"Wh.. what?" That wasn't what Apollo had suspected.

Trucy clenched her hands into fists determinedly. "I know YOU'RE gay, Daddy, but I didn't think Polly was! I mean, he seemed like he really cared for Vera..."

Phoenix scratched his stubble. "I don't know. I always had my suspicions--"

"You're GAY?!" Apollo sputtered, gawking at him. "S-since-- wha-- how?!"

"Since always." He looked away boredly. "Kind of ironic, actually, you sleeping with the prosecutor."

Trucy beamed and bounced a bit where she was sitting. "That's right! Polly hasn't met Uncle Miles yet, has he?"

"Uncle Miles? W-wait... you don't mean..." He looked to Phoenix desperately - the ex-attorney merely smiled back at him. "M-Miles... Edgeworth?!"

Phoenix nodded sagely, and Apollo's jaw dropped. "The rumors were true?!"

Trucy merely giggled, and Phoenix laughed. A bead of sweat coursed down Apollo's broad forehead. Now he felt like the clueless one.

---

"It's rare that you visit me nowadays, brother." Kristoph didn't bother to look up from his book. "Why come all this way? I hear you've been quite occupied with rocking or whatever it is you do."

"Well, it's kind of important, ja? I figured you should be one of the first to know." Klavier shuffled his feet, leaning against the cold bars of the cell, studying the lines in his older brother's face as he took a sip from his cup of tea. Prison had aged him. "The thing is..."

He bit his lip as Kristoph slowly turned a page. Might as well be out with it.

"I am having sexual relations with your apprentice."

Kristoph spat out his tea.

PIXEL ART: Dump

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:21:46 GMT

Been a while. I have a lot of stuff piled up. I guess I'll just post some of the more notable stuff.

Teasers:

The As-Of-Yet Unnamed "Egg Project"

A series of images for my eventual series of adoptables on Gaia Online. The last one is the rough prototype of what the adoptable certificate would look like. The goal is to have them evolve over a period of several weeks into pretty things... and, um, for me to sell those pretty things for virtual currency. The ones with the butterfly wings are the Imiari and the Midnight Imiari - others unnamed.

July 2008
Spoiler for Apollo Justice Ace Attorney Case 1
Simple but fun to make. I beat myself up a lot at the time for not making it easier to see, but... I like it now.

Klavier Gavin, Jack of Hearts
I was going to make a whole series of images based around this concept, and I still haven't quite abandoned the idea, though if I do it it'll definitely be bigger so you can see it and stuff.

Seasons
...I totally didn't notice until just now that this is one of those images where you can make it spin either way with your mind. That's pretty fucked up that I did that on accident. I don't even remember what direction I originally intended it to spin... I think counter-clockwise.

August 2008

Psyche-lock
A very tiny one.

Spoiler for Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations Case 1
A piece of evidence from that case.

Magatama
As it says. With evidence background!

Phoenix's Hat
...Alright, I'm really proud of this one. It took a lot of time and I had fun with it. The animation is my favorite part because I think it came out very well.

Spoiler for Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations Case 5
A piece of evidence from that case. A more minor piece, but I always thought it was very pretty.

Badge
The beloved attorney's badge!

September 2008

Yue of Rune Factory 2
I'm really fond of this one! It's where I first really solidly established my black-lined style which gives my stuff a more distinct look. Yue of Rune Factory 2, a game for the DS coming out very very soon in America. Fun! I played it a little in Japanese. Yue is very cute.

Odeko Sitting
Expect to see a lot more Odeko. My friend's very cute character that I love drawing. I made this from the bottom up (starting at her butt, then her waist, arms, shoulders, etc...) rather than starting with the face as I usually do.

Bouncy Gavin
One of my favorite pieces! This modified version was actually made later - the first version WITH LARGE SPOILERS FOR APOLLO JUSTICE CASES 1 AND 4 can be found here.

Bouncy Phoenix
Phoenix bouncing too. Fact: Making stubble look cute is hard.

October 2008

Bouncy Apollo
Technically this is unfinished - I'm not very happy with the small amount of frames on his feathers and I don't think the person I made this for was either. But I haven't worked on it since and I really like everything else about it, so I figured I'd post it. I'll give his hair more frames one of these days.

Lamp
I'll be honest and say I'm not very happy with this. It's kind of pretty and I like the color palettes I used but they do not look like lava lamps.

Mop
"This took 10 minutes, is 7 colors, and his name is Mop."
Done with my eyes half-blurry.

Raspberry Roll
"This is Raspberry Roll, she was made in about 7 minutes, and is also 7 colors!"
More half-blurry art.

Basin Puppy
"This is Basin, he's kind of a dog, kind of not, and he's also animated with Super Advanced Blinking Action. He's 9 colors, and he took 10 minutes."
My eyes were doing alright by this time.

"can you do a dismembered hand giving a thumbs-up sign?"
"...in which I demonstrate how crappy I am at doing hands."
Summed it up then, sums it up now.

Moltie Grace
Moltie, being, um... Moltie. And by that I mean being rosy-cheeked and generally adorable. A friend of mine said he'd look bad in pixels so I tried to prove him wrong! That is also a fake mustache.

Bounce bounce bounce
... bounce... bounce... bounce...

Bouncing BOUNCING MORE
... bounce... bounce... bounce...

2 colors
I dunno why I made this. Wasn't very close to my original vision (I wanted something much bigger) but it's not too bad.

November 2008

Reddy
A gift for a friend, her Gaia avatar.

Fufubase Pixels
The ones on top: pixels I made for Fufu, a friend questing for body dye on Gaia Online. The ones on the bottom: ones I made for other people using the base from the Fufu pixels. I have a shop for these!

Battle Drow!Radi
Also known as "my post format". I didn't use it very long and my avatar looks pretty hugely different now, but I'm still really happy with this since I made the body from scratch - the proportions are pretty good for something I bullshat to work off stress.

Bottles
And Radi drew the first Bottle, and her Friend imparted onto her, "Draw liquids." And it was done. And then a Forum Goer imparted onto her, "Draw a Seahorse." And it was done.

Erinys
My friend's FOnewearl. (Well, Fortetecher, really) Face practice!

Moon Jellyfish
I'm really happy with this one... but then again, I really really like jellyfish.

8-bit zOMG
Gaia has an MMORPG now called zOMG!. It's kind of dorky but it's also fun and I've been playing it with a few friends. So here's Odeko (far left), Radi (middle, me), and Miako (far right). This is actually unfinished, because Deadly, another friend, is supposed to be here too, but I haven't done her yet.

This was supposed to be done in a Nintendo style and IS using the palette, but, uh... didn't find out until afterwards that sprites in NES games can only have 4 colors in them at any given time. WHOOPS! Hey, if I took out one of the colors in Miako's, that one at least would work. Unfortunately finding out that I broke the rules in a big way that would require a lot of retooling to end up accurate has kind of discouraged me from finishing this. But maybe I'll give it a shot sometime, or finish it and just say it's 8-bit inspired...

Odekomon Blue
...This is just silliness really. I made this tonight! Both are done entirely from scratch with 4 colors in the style of the old Pokemon games - the only part not handmade is the text window border and the text itself. A mock-up of what it'd be like if Odeko had a video game...

The first one is gameplay, the second would be a cutscene of sorts. The first intended Radi (my persona/avatar) to be the rival (who is inexplicably in Odeko's house. I said because she's looting it), but then Radi was demanded to be the game's obligatory POKEMON PROF.

And so the second was made with the caption "...and PROF. RADI was never seen again." (Drifloon is my favorite pokemon. Let's just forget that it didn't exist until Diamond and Pearl.)

PW fanfic / In His Eyes

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:34:29 GMT

Title: In His Eyes
Series: Phoenix Wright
Rating: PG for mild slash
Pairing: Phoenix/Edgeworth
Summary: It's funny how two people can spend so much time noticing little things about each other, they hardly notice the little things about themselves. This rings particularly true for two lawyers.
Warnings: No spoilers. Slash (homosexuality).
Notes: The prompt for this was "In his eyes - Write something expressing the feelings and emotions portrayed through someones eyes. No dialogue.", with an added challenge of 432 words.
Wordcount: 432

Phoenix Wright has no idea how easy it is to tell what he's thinking simply by looking in his eyes.

He doesn't know about the way his eyes flash in court when he's found a contradiction, or the determination that shows in them when he knows someone isn't guilty and is going to prove it. Nor does he know about the way that his eyes widen and then abruptly narrow and dart around nervously when he's run himself into a hole during a case, or the wide, almost shy look they take on when he's embarrassed or proud of himself over the work he's done for a client.

Phoenix never pays attention to how vivid the blue in his eyes is, or how bright they seem when he's happy. He doesn't know about the way his squiggled eyebrows twitch in thought when he's confused.

Phoenix has no idea how much Miles Edgeworth enjoys admiring his eyes, how often he muses over that particular shade of blue. He doesn't know how many times the prosecutor focuses on them during testimony, when he should actually be observing the witness's face for some sign of nervousness where Phoenix might try to point out a contradiction, or how many times Edgeworth has scolded himself over staring at a newspaper with Phoenix's picture on it, looking at that satisfied, tired smile he wears after finally winning a trial.

In the same vein, Edgeworth has no idea how confused Phoenix gets when trying to read his expression. His eyes seem constantly narrowed in some manner of scowl or smirk; only during moments of annoyance or outrage do they widen. His lips are constantly pressed in a thin, condescending line.

Edgeworth certainly has no idea how many lame jokes Phoenix has cracked in an attempt to make that thin line curve into a smile.

He is unaware of how much he's admired, and not just by Phoenix, for the way he can keep such a straight, intimidating expression even when the pressure is so thick most men would snap under it like twigs.

He doesn't know how many times his face has been studied by the opposing counsel while he's reading his opening statement, his face holding a quiet confidence over the argument he prepared for the trial; he doesn't know about the way his lips twitch subtly when he thinks he's won the case, or how much Phoenix likes that quirk.

Edgeworth has no idea how many minutes Phoenix has wasted thinking up questions about whatever case they're on, just for a chance to see his face again.

PW fanfic / Old and New

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:03:44 GMT

Title: Old and New
Series: Phoenix Wright
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and mild slash
Pairing: Phoenix/Edgeworth
Summary: For Edgeworth, old wounds don't heal. Phoenix Wright doesn't want to believe that. Oneshot.
Warnings: BIG SPOILERS FOR PW1 CASES 4 AND 5! Slash (homosexuality).
Notes: Set during PW1 Case 5. This was written in late 2006, and was posted once before on some PW communities, so you may have read it before.
Wordcount: 2343

Phoenix Wright could hear the rain pounding on the windows as he made his way to Miles Edgeworth's office, the glass windowpanes hammered by quarter-sized drops of cold water that made it impossible to see anything other than the vague, blurry shapes of nearby buildings. The hallway was quiet and strangely empty, with the exception of the occasional attorney or court worker walking by him in silence; some giving him strange, concerned, or scrutinizing looks as they walked past. He tried to swallow his grimace and smile in return. The young defense attorney knew it was because of the current case, his most high-profile client to date, defending the Chief Prosecutor herself, Lana Skye, accompanied by her young sister, Ema Skye (who was currently out buying aluminum powder). The concerned looks were the ones that worried him the most, as it felt like they were almost pitying him for picking such a hopeless case.

After his last case, with seemingly airtight evidence and testimony against his client and a prosecutor who hadn't lost a case in forty years, he thought some people might try to have a little faith in him.

Thunder rumbled across the sky somewhere close by, and a flash of lightning briefly cast light on the words "Miles Edgeworth, Criminal Prosecutor" engraved in shiny gold lettering on a tall, wooden door in front of him. He gulped and knocked briskly two or three times before turning the doorknob and stepping in. The scent of lavender and dust gathering on law books and dictionaries with a very faint hint of strawberries greeted him, and he squinted to make out all the details of the office he could see, a habit he'd developed after investigating so much on cases. The lights were off except for the desk lamp, the room lit by the dim grey glow from daylight through dark clouds outside, making the room unusually dark in comparison to the typically well-lit surroundings, and the room housed Edgeworth's usual flamboyant furnishings such as pink curtains (he could hear Edgeworth saying "It's maroon, Wright" in his head), a lavender bouquet in a a ridiculously ruffled vase, and some expensive-looking teacups.

At first he thought Edgeworth was out - the darkened surroundings seemed to be an indicator, though it seemed strange of Edgeworth to leave his door unlocked. Then he noticed the head resting on the table, soft brown bangs draped over closed eyes.

He panicked for a brief moment - Edgeworth wasn't the kind of guy to sleep on the job, and he had a lot of enemies, many of them convicted criminals who didn't have a moment's hesitance when it came to taking a life over a grudge. Then he noticed the prosecutor shifting in his sleep and mumbling something inaudible. Who would've thought... Miles Edgeworth, genius prosecutor, napping in his office. He walked over with the intention to gently wake him - after all, he didn't think Edgeworth would've liked one of his superiors walking in and giving him a much ruder awakening, especially when he was already under pressure due to suspicion of forged evidence... he didn't need people questioning his work ethic too.

But just as he was about to place a hand on the man's shoulder to give him a mild shake, Edgeworth jerked upright with a desperate, shuddering gasp.

Phoenix quickly moved his hand away and hesitated. "Hey... hey, Edgeworth, are you alright?" He asked timidly. The prosecutor whirled around quickly in his chair, crimson eyes widened and bullets of cold sweat running down his face, his breath coming in short, uneven gasps at an irregular rhythm. His eyes were bloodshot and took a second to focus on the defense attorney standing before him, and he seemed to be trying to force himself to regain his composure. It wasn't working. In fact, Edgeworth looked utterly terrified.

The fact that he was usually so calm and concise and was now looking utterly unguarded was somewhat unnerving, and Phoenix wasn't sure how to proceed. He could offer comfort, something he wasn't really good at and Edgeworth might refuse, or be utterly mortified about later. Or he could do nothing and give some words of encouragement before leaving. It'd make him feel like an asshole, but Edgeworth might prefer it for minimal embarrassment.

The almost childlike fright and helplessness in Edgeworth's eyes quickly dismissed the latter thought. Even if he wasn't likely to admit it, Edgeworth needed somebody right now.

"It... it was just..." Edgeworth spoke, his voice slightly high-pitched and unsteady. "It was just... a nightmare." Phoenix felt a terrible sickly feeling ebb through him as he heard these words, his mind jumping to a thousand conclusions, all of them depressing (this happened in court more often than he'd like to admit).

Edgeworth's words from two months prior echoed in his mind. Every night, for the past 15 years, I've had the same nightmare. I wake up every time in a cold sweat. It was disturbing, to say the least, to think of Edgeworth being haunted of dreams of killing his own father. Every single night, for fifteen years. How could he live with that and still be relatively sane? Especially when he hadn't been entirely sure if it was a dream or not?

He felt an uncomfortable tightness in his chest, only made worse by watching Edgeworth turn away, trying to hide away emotions and other things he'd seen the man try so hard to suppress in the past. What kind of a fool was he to believe that after his last case, the nightmares would magically stop? Maybe they weren't as bad now. Or maybe they were worse. His blind belief in the pursuit of truth and defending the innocent was starting to get a little more jaded now that he realized that the truth was a double-edged sword. Edgeworth knew the truth, but he also now knew that the man who had been his father figure and mentor for the past fifteen years had killed his father; in cold blood with no apparent remorse, no less. Over something as fucking trivial as a penalty that he deserved. And the same man was likely to file an appeal, plead temporary insanity, and get off scot-free.

Phoenix swallowed the lump in his throat and put what he hoped was a comforting hand on Edgeworth's shoulder, who tensed briefly then relaxed somewhat, turning to look at him with a tired ghost of his usual disdain. "It's... n-nothing that concerns you." He tried to shrug the hand off his shoulder and brought his palms up to his face to push his bangs out of his eyes, and Phoenix could see his hands shaking somewhat

A deafening boom of thunder rang out above the building, the floor shaking slightly and the windows rattling, and for a second the room was illuminated by the brilliant white light of a lightning strike somewhere nearby. The composure Edgeworth had been trying to slowly rebuild seemed to shatter, and Phoenix thought he heard a small, barely audible whimper from the prosecutor. He tightened his grip on the man's shoulder, who seemed to freeze up and said nothing, and they sat there in silence for a few minutes together, neither entirely sure what to say. Some of the rain was now forming tiny pellets of hail and hammering the building with that instead; it sounded like a thousand little marbles colliding with the roof.

"Edgeworth?" Phoenix said, voice laced with uncertainty. He felt terribly out of place - a defense attorney standing in an overly fancy prosecutor's office in a cheap blue suit, trying feebly to comfort a prosecutor who people said had no emotion, no remorse, and especially no tear ducts; just chilled perfection. Said prosecutor was currently trying to keep himself from having a breakdown. Said prosecutor's face looked wet.

"What are you doing here?" The prosecutor asked, not even turning to face him. Phoenix gave pause; why was he there? He had nothing to discuss with Edgeworth at this point. He shouldn't have even been discussing the case with him - him, the prosecutor, and himself, the defense attorney.

But he hadn't come for the case, had he?

No, he had needed to see Edgeworth. After learning about DL-6, his loathing of the prosecutor's tactics in court had been replaced with worry about his well-being. Even with Edgeworth's cold, professional demeanor and apparent tendency to miss every single one of his calls (or perhaps because of it), Phoenix was finding himself more and more concerned about the man. Was he dumb to think himself a friend of the elegant prosecutor, even if he seemed to want nothing to do with him? More importantly, why did he want nothing to do with him?

Edgeworth turned to look at him, and Phoenix hurriedly shook himself out of his thoughts; he had forgotten Edgeworth had asked a question. "Oh... uh, I just wanted to see you." He said hastily, earning a raised eyebrow and an unreadable expression - but then again, when had he ever been able to read Edgeworth's expressions?

"Why?" He asked simply, and honest confusion flickered across his features briefly before it was replaced with a pained smirk. "Did you come to laugh?"

"No, I didn't." Phoenix replied quickly. He hated when Edgeworth said things like that, not just because of the assumption that he was selfish enough to come to his office just to laugh at him (he had nothing to be laughing about anyway), but because he worried Edgeworth actually thought that was what he was doing.

Was it so hard to comprehend that he was concerned?

"I came because I was worried about you."

"Well, instead of spending your time on lost causes, you should invest some of that spare time into worrying about your case." Phoenix winced at the insult.

"I don't think you're a lost cause."

Edgeworth's face twisted into a tired glare, his eyes narrowing. "For the last fifteen years, I have been pursuing a career under the tutelage of the man who murdered my father, a man who tried to take the place of my father. My father is probably turning in his grave at the thought of me." He firmly gripped the armrest of his chair and bit his lip. "And because of the trial recently, every defense attorney I fight is calling my mental soundness into question. Miles Edgeworth, the prosecutor whose father was killed by the same man that raised him, the prosecutor who forges and lies and has terrible nightmares of the incident even now." He practically spat out that last bit, as if it were a filthy taste in his mouth. "Apparently the tabloids believe it quite sensational. With that said, Wright, are you still going to pretend that you care about this psychological wreck that I've turned into?"

If Phoenix wasn't too busy being occupied with the flood of thoughts brought on by Edgeworth's outburst, he would've immediately blurted out "yes"; instead he simply lingered there, mulling over the prosecutor's words. He couldn't stop kicking himself over the fact that he had no idea that Edgeworth was still so tortured by the event - he had thought maybe now, with the incident resolved and the true culprit caught, he might be able to start putting parts of it behind him. He knew now that was one of the dumbest assumptions he'd ever made.

"I didn't think so." He whispered, getting up from his chair. "We have nothing to talk about. Good luck with your case." Without looking at him, Edgeworth began walking towards the door, flinching slightly when thunder rumbled in the distance.

"H-hey... Edgeworth, wait. Wait!" When he didn't stop, Phoenix ran after him and, without thinking, grabbed his hand. Edgeworth tried to jerk away but Phoenix held tight, and the prosecutor turned to look at him with one of the most intense stares he'd ever received. He worked up his courage and stared back.

"Miles." Edgeworth's scowl faltered for a second and Phoenix felt a little more confidence rising within him. "I really care about you. Even if you want to pretend I don't, I care about you. Doesn't that count for something?"

The prosecutor opened his mouth to say something but Phoenix didn't want to hear any more of that biting wit and sarcasm. Here goes nothing, he thought, pushing Edgeworth up against a wall and pressing their lips together.

It took a second for him to respond - Edgeworth seemed to be almost frozen, eyes widened and perplexed. Then he shut those eyes tightly and dug his fingers into the back of Phoenix's blue suit, pulling him as close as he could, letting out a quiet sob against the defense attorney's warm mouth. They stood there for a few minutes, desperately pressing against eachother, Edgeworth arching his back against the wall and trying to memorize as much of these feelings as possible - the scent of maximum-strength hair gel and cheap cologne, the feeling of Phoenix's hands tangled in his hair, the hot wetness of Phoenix's tongue against his own--

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything, pal!" quipped an enthusiastic Detective Gumshoe as he pushed open the door, Ema in tow.

"Mr. Edgeworth, sir? Are you here? Is Mr. Wright he--..." Ema's voice died in her throat as both her and Gumshoe turned to see the two lawyers against the wall, kissing desperately as if their whole lives depended on it. Edgeworth's eyes darted over to them and he hurriedly pushed a disappointed Phoenix away, looking rather disheveled, his face thoroughly red.

"W... what are you doing here?" He said, trying to regain his composure and straighten his cravat, though he seemed rather out of breath. "Both of you... get... get out. You don't have permission to be here." Phoenix snickered behind his hand as a flustered Edgeworth rushed towards Ema and Gumshoe and pushed the shocked pair out of the office, slamming the door and locking it. He turned around hastily.

"Now, where were we?"