I Don't Want You To Feel Like You're Nothing

i thought too hard about insect motifs got a little silly and made... a lot lmao these versions of the characters are from @sm-baby's amazing digital carnival au!! full images and rambling about insect choices are gonna get stuck under the cut... it'll be a bit long and i will be putting photos of real bugs down there so be mindful

pomni: "butterfly"

inspirational species are black swallowtails mostly for the shape, and malay red harlequins mostly for the pattern

carnival pomni's actually the one that kickstarted this whole set... i drew her hat in a way that reminded me of butterflies, went "wait...", then i fully leaned into it :)

jax: "centipede"

there was no specific species for jax. without being able to use color, they were too similar to pick any out... i have included a giant centipede just for reference though since it was mainly larger centipedes i used for inspiration

anddd there's a little bonus sketch for how pre-sentience jax might've looked with a centipede outfit... he gets a bug scarf and some goggles!

ragatha: "ladybug"

inspirational species was the twice-stabbed ladybug chosen because the inverted color scheme looked the best out of all the ones i tried, and also because it's a metal name and we know ragatha's good with a knife... stabby stab... i did add more than two spots to the dress though, it just looks cooler lol

gangle: "spider"

inspiration was the spinybacked orb weaver which i was absolutely ecstatic to find because come on that is the perfect spider for gangle like look at it!! it looks like her mask, it's got red, it's got gold on the limbs, literally twinning

zooble: "mantis"

inspiration was the spiny flower mantis which, like with gangle, i feel is pretty much perfect for zooble... they come in many colors (including pink), have abstract patterns, and it gave me the excuse to cover zooble in spikes :D fun

and no kaufmo because i'm lazy and he's dead (sorry kaufmo fans but am i wrong), and the rest don't have bug names that i know of?

i still want to draw the carnival characters in their regular looks sometime, i just got really really inspired by the idea of secret skins and bug-themed outfits and went a liiittle haywire :P

anyways if you read all that you're a real one and you've got too much time on your hands... if you didn't, i understand, i get wordy, sorry :'D okay i think that's all byeee

anyway feeling very normal about this scene

the fact that after a long, unpleasant day of absolutely nothing going his way and constantly being reminded of how much everyone else dislikes him, he's too tired to keep his act up and seeks out a genuine conversation with the one person whom he hasn't interacted with through the entire adventure

Pomni about to answer sincerely before realizing it's Jax and changing her approach, either out of caution or uncertainty by him being so... casual

she braces for one of his usual remarks/jokes but is surprised when he answers with neither, simply letting her know how he's doing as well

finally, when he's called over for another task, he's still visibly annoyed but follows through without much protest and waves goodbye to Pomni, who is undoubtedly confused by what she just saw.

there have been a couple of instances where the series shows us that Jax is being affected by the circus more than he lets on, and they were really focused on during this episode.

this got me thinking about what Goose really meant by him "getting worse"; most people (myself included) interpreted it as his actions gradually escalating to a point where it could result in conflict with the rest of the cast, but after this scene and near the end where he leaves and gets in his car, it could be understood as his repressed emotions finally catching up to him and turning his mental well-being for the worst. It could also be a mix of the two

now this is the part where I put my delusional cap on, but there has been a significant build up to Jax and Pomni's relationship through the whole series, the most notorious one being:

his hand missing from Pomni's moment of realization that the other people she's been trapped with are trustworthy and care for her. You obviously can't blame her for coming to this conclusion, but I think that's exactly what made this small interaction a lot more important

Jax has been pushing others away and masking his emotions for who knows how long, and one of the primary focus and messages of TADC is connections with others and how important they are, so for them to show us Pomni seeing Jax have a brief moment of vulnerability, I do believe it's reasonable to think that they will eventually develop a relationship with some amount of significance, maybe even something close to a friendship

but yeah, feeling very normal

the main thing I’ve gathered from the Pacific Rim director’s commentary is that, even though a lot more of PacRim was done with CGI than I had realized, it still holds up almost 10 years later because of how intentional Guillermo Del Toro was with building in details, flaws, weathering and environmental factors, and, primarily, love and respect into every single model.

He helped animate every single creature and robot by hand on his tablet, he praised the animators for every single shot and talks about how brilliant they are, how hard they worked on every detail, he treats all of them like human beings, like geniuses, just as integral to the film as himself and the actors. The animators themselves talk about how intentional and detailed his ideas were, how helpful and insightful he was when he spoke to them about changes, when he came to them with new ideas.

There’s also a hell of a lot of practical effects woven in, which add to the believability, but the CGI holds up first and foremost because he saw it as an art form to be cultivated and loved just as fiercely as everything else, not a ‘wow’ effect to be slapped in for budget cuts.

// spotlight on me and I’m ready to break

unsure if my ask went thru bc i didnt see the popup that said it sended over so i’m typing it out again

i NEEED NEEDD a tutorial on how you draw & design mechs bc the way you draw them is literally perfection in every way. this is from an anon who wants to make mech ocs but is unsure where to start theyre so complicated to design

dusting off my tutorial brain

my style of mech is very influenced by transformers (mix of different continuities and tf artists that I like) so I look at a lot of characters for inspiration

There's a lot of stuff you could add to it too like vents, pipes, antennas, fins, wires, joints, etc..

watching the day after tomorrow and mourning that we never got spiderman jake gyllenhaal dude he would’ve been perfect

For the authors that need it 😌

Pacific Rim (2013) dir. Guillermo del Toro