Bay 12 Games Forum

I'm surprised no-one had mentioned Violet Evergarden. I've heard good things about it several times, although I haven't watched it myself.

Note: topless, but breasts covered.

Contrived the purchase of some PC parts. With some of the oddments I had around previously, it's... pretty powerful now, by my standards. Not a top-end machine, but arguably more than I can reasonably afford anyway. >_>

Hey! Thanks for the feedback (and welcome to Bay12). It's incomplete, yes, which is something of an issue. In an ideal universe, I would have written several follow-up stories to this by now, but I do not have that sort of time right now. >_>

That's part of what causes things like Sarah seeming too sane for the elevator pitch and the characterisation feeling thin. I should really work on that.

Most of your points are valid! I just want to touch on a few issues of language and grammar quickly.

No one is not hyphenated, like no person.

I write in British English (specifically South African English, but since I avoid slang except in dialogue you probably can't tell). British English hyphenates many words American English does not.


All right is a statement that everything is well, so avoid alright, as that contrasted with other al- words implies a separate meaning. Similar forms have such different meanings. Ex. already: now / previously, and all ready: entirely prepared.
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Written as intended. By "alright", she means that she's clear and Timur can move. "All right" would be a bit of a weird construction in context.

Of course consists of two words, no need to hyphenate for an interjection.

I agree in principle, but it feels smoother in practice. I'll have to think about this a bit.

There is no need to write out Mhmm and then describe it. One or the other suffices.

There are about a thousand ways you can intone a wordless murmur. I wanted to make it clear which.

There is lack of decisive narration, leading to the reader having to make baseless assumptions. When Travis was carried to success, literally, was he physically carried by zombies? Why wouldn't he be?

...because that makes no sense at all? It's a turn of phrase I went back and forth on for a while. On the whole, I think it would be better suited as something else, but not because I think there's a risk of the average reader thinking that zombies physically carried Travis, in person, to some physical location denoting success.

The narration in the directly following paragraphs is written as if it were one of the characters telling a coworker in a bar, as it is strangely familiar with the subject matter without explaining the circumstances. It skips over gathering evidence. It mentions graves that are too fresh, admits a coincidental string of missing persons, a vague statement, and ends on the note that Travis does not go the company office often. On these grounds they schedule an assassination.

Hmm. It was meant to be quite a broad-strokes picture, glossing over details, but I guess I went too far in that direction. I detest exposition crammed in unnaturally, which sometimes leads to e jumping through weird hoops to try to avoid it.

Reading it went well until I got utterly bewildered why they were leaving before eliminating their target, only to go back and inconclusively resolve that his death was implied. Then it only got worse with the spray painting. I thought Sarah was meant to paint the back of the house.

I can see how you got there, yeah. I thought it was clearer at the time, thank you.

I thought they were locked in a room after a mission went horribly wrong.

Any chance you could elaborate on this? It's mentioned pretty early on that they're outside a mansion.

The characters do not sound like they are doing something dangerous. They sound like they are limping away from unimpressive failure. Timor was unconcerned about crippled at the start of breaching a necromancer's house. When Sarah says "What? Stub your toe?" it does not seem like she thinks there is any real danger, despite the zombie that broke Timor's arm. But two paragraphs later the muted sound of keys struck fear of a zombie horde into their hearts.

Good point. I flubbed the chronology there, thanks.

The individual sentences are very confusing. Because "Sarah affected a gravelly voice." has a full stop it comes across as either a random piece of information about her preferences or that the pain was starting to influence her vocal cords.

I did not realise that could be taken that way! Thank you.

But the opposite problem is also present. Too many sentences are two or more unrelated clauses. I only now realized that the "She didn't look much better" sentence did not mean that she was in a poor state after sitting in the cold but rather that she was scarred too.

Interesting. I would never have taken the meaning you did from that paragraph. I'll have to think about that.

I have many unanswered questions after reading this twice such as:
Why did the medic like no other not bring painkillers? Or administer beforehand? They talk about routine work, so she must have been through the pain enough to prepare accordingly.

Any painkiller strong enough to stop a broken arm making you crotchety would also put you out like a light, as far as I know. I personally avoid opioids before breaking and entering.

If Travis was trying to hide his nature, why did he put a zombie in his backyard or imprison people in his bedroom rather than a basement?

He uses them on construction sites. His back yard and bedroom are hardly more conspicuous.

If Double Edge is extralegal, why do they sneak around? If they want to remain secret, why do they spray paint their insignia on the front door?

I'm using "extralegal" in the sense of "not sanctioned by law". I would have thought it was fairly clear why they work quietly and only mark what they've done afterwards - easier not to attract attention until it's too late for anyone to interfere.

What does it mean when a person is a "total twist"? I assume it means that a person is twisted, but I can't find a source on that, only that in that context it refers to a young woman.

Idiomatic language. A twist is slang for a sadist or psychopath.

There are quite a few things I would say about each line, but this post is dragging on, so I'll do one.

I'll explain my thinking here.

this implies that standing up contributed to the popping and creaking]

That would be because it does.

this sentence detrimentally combines the lockpicking with his scars and also his current state

The intention was to indicate that the cause was the cold.

imprecise. It is obviously meant to say that it hurt him, but literally it says that it just didn't heal him. Unless the narration is meant to be imprecise this is a problem

If the meaning is obvious, there is no problem here. I would go so far as to say the "implication" is so strong as to be nearly explicit. It's a common idiom.

the overuse of "as" and "while" aid the growth of this conglomerate. Additionally, the pronoun "their" doesn't have nouns to refer to other than "aches"

I'm a little confused what you're getting at here. I probably do overuse "as" and "while", but certainly not in that paragraph; and yes, "their" refers to the aches. That's also a common idiomatic construction.

this implies he is lifting the padlock up to him rather than taking it into his hand. Once again, "lock" doesn't refer to the padlock, unless there is no other lock on the door

I wouldn't say it necessarily implies that. And it's pretty explicit that it refers to the padlock, unless you're in the habit of ripping the locks out of doors to pick them up...? There's really no other lock he could be picking up, here, particularly since it's been explicitly labeled as "the padlock" in the previous sentence.

Confused as I was, I enjoyed it all the same. I would be glad to see you grow accustomed to writing these larger pieces, Arx, as I would like to read more. I hope this was of some use to you.

I'll be writing more when I have the time. I'll see about being more clear.

Thank you for the feedback! I know I've disagreed with a lot of it, but if you could elaborate on the parts I've disagreed with that would be a big help. I may well just not understand what you were driving at.

That is perfection. You are a marvel, tovarisch.

The composition looks good, my only criticism there is that the lightning is so big that it looks very close and it kind of steals some attention away from the soldier.

Mm, that was my thinking as well.

My main issue is the lighting, you could have done a lot more with it if you were going to be practicing values. You could have some secondary lighting reflecting off the ground to show that the surface he's standing on exists without showing it. Half of the skirt is a solid white highlight and it makes it flat, the same with the ripples on the flag; the flag looks like it might be striped instead of lit. It's a good starting point for something more finished.

The solid highlights are intentional - that's what I meant by practicing harsh values. Consider it a part of practicing lighting. I'll make a note, though.

Your colors and brushing have been steadily improving over the years but your anatomy and lighting consistently feels neglected.

Huh. I wouldn't have said so, but I guess it wouldn't be true if I would have, so...

I think most of these problems wouldn't be there if you always worked from reference and overall spent more time with your individual paintings. For most people I recommend moving on and trying to fix the last problem in a new painting but for you I almost want to lock you in a room with one painting for a week to force you to refine more!

Haha, I almost universally ref my pieces. It's true that I don't like to stay on one piece, though. If I spend more than about four hours on a painting I start to get bored.

That said, out of everyone you are one of the few who has something new to show almost every week. Keep up the hard work.

I certainly didn't disappear for nearly a month
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>_>
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But thank you.

Fanart for Duelyst. The pixel art in the corner is the original by Unseven, the primary artist/art director for Duelyst. I wanted to play around with transferring the colour scheme directly from pixels to painting, but it just makes it look a little uncanny. Chalk it up to failed experiment, I guess.

Excellent points, Arx. I wanted to add that depending on the size of the tablet, drawing from the arm might not be the most efficient method, but then realised I was just making excuses for my own bad habits, and more practice is called for before actually judging. Cheers

Also noice elf, there. How you render hair like that is completely beyond me

It's a perfectly valid concern, but I think your tablet would have to be something like 3x4 inches for it to come up, haha (that's the largest area I can comfortably draw a straightish line across with just my wrist). What is true is that full-arm movements with the shoulder don't come up as much in digital art as they would in, say, traditional oil portraits, partly because you can zoom out and draw with smaller movements to the same effect. Which is also a great hack for drawing smooth lines!

I don't know that I would recommend the way I do hair to anyone D: But it's actually relatively simple. I block out the colour with a rough brush (you can see it at the end of his hair), sweep in basic locks and highlights with the same brush, and work down brush sizes and smothnesses down to a small hard brush for picking out the escaping strands. I feel like I over-rendered the hair here, actually. There probably shouldn't be so much detail visible outside of the little highlights.

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The lightning is, I think, too strong.