Friendly reminder

Daryl and Marlin, our ship cats! It's Marlin's second season sailing (though he's been with us three years- got locked at the seaport last season for crimes) and Daryl's first! What sweet babies 💖

The people have spoken: What Crimes Has Locked This Poor Soul Away

You are Marlin, ship's cat and mascot of the tallship Lady Washington. It is the summer of 2021, you are about a year old, and full of Mischief.

Lady is docked in the Port of Everett, and no one is paying attention to you- never mind the fact that they're doing their jobs and getting money so they can keep pampering you. No, they're not paying attention to you Right This Instant, so you decide you want to take a little jaunt off the ship and explore on your own.

In addition to the marina, the waterfront, and all manner of other delights, the Port of Everett also has a Naval base, so you decide to check it out! See what all the fuss is about.

Of course, wandering kitties without the proper credentials aren't allowed on high security Naval bases, so when the Marines inevitably capture you and ask you where your people are and what you're doing here and how you got here, you just curl up cutely and bat your eyes and meow the most pitiful meow because these new people are paying attention to you but not the Right attention, no one's even petting you!

They call the number on your collar, which goes to the captain of Lady at the time, who... is on leave. In Florida.

"Ma'am? Is this your cat?"

"Oh god yeah where was he?"

"A high security government facility. Can you come pick him up?"

"Considering I'm on the other side of the country, no. Let me get in contact with the crew to send someone."

"Thank you. Also he's very cute."

"I know."

So the captain does just that, playing telephone while trying to find someone to go pick you up. Except by the time a viable crewmember is chosen and calls back to confirm, you've gotten bored and decided you want to leave.

So you clawed the Marine holding you and escaped.

You get a smidgen more exploring time before you're captured again and taken to your crew and back to the boat, but at this point no one is happy including you, because no one pet you the Whole Time you were off adventuring and that's a damn travesty.

And not only that, when you get back to the ship, you're locked up tight in the aft cabin because no one trusts you anymore not to wander off and break into government facilities when they're not looking, and then when the boat gets back to her homeport in Aberdeen, they do you just the WORST injustice and lock you inside there! For the whole winter! And then the following summer, because you are now a Criminal and Criminals don't sail.

Except this season, you made Big Pouty Eyes at everyone, and they caved and let you back on, so you are a very happy kitty now.

With a tracker in your collar so this doesn't happen again.

So I'm on of those people who enjoys a good "art style challenge" videos. Looking through a lot of different "styles" of art, I've noticed a sort of spectrum that slides between two points.

Stylization and Rendering.

I've made this handy blob to to visualize this spectrum.

Stylization to me is the design of something using shape language, proportions, details vs simplicity, and exaggeration or lack thereof.

It slides between Semi Realism: being more based on reality, Semi Abstract : based more on shape and exaggeration, and Stylized: having a basis in reality but takes artistic liberties to emphasize on certain aspects/feelings.

Rendering to me is the application of form or lack of on a design. Lighting (shade, highlights, rim light), textures, patterns, and lines (there or not). Leaning more graphic or more form based.

No or Low Rendering leans into being graphic. Stylized being some lighting to get an idea of form but not too much to clutter the scene or slow down production. Hight Render leaning on form.

Here are some examples of how different visual stories fit on the scale.

Here you can have stylized character designs with different scales of rendering. Stylization is mostly seen in Japanese Anime and those inspired by Disney.

Same with Semi Abstract designs with different rendering styles. Semi Abstract comes from the UPA shorts from the 50s that really pushed into exaggerated shape language.

Semi Realistic designs can change with how you render them. Semi Realism is based more on reality.

Works the other way around with Rendering.

You can have the same amount of rendering but take in a story way different with how a character is designed.

Most high rendering is seen in high budget 3D animated features because it would take forever to ask an artist to render this much detail at 24 frames per second. And we already torture animators as is.

Gradient rendering is seen mostly in webcomics, Korean comics, and illustrated books. Though with Klaus we are starting to see it more in animation.

Cel Shading is most common in 2D animated series and movies. Gives it more form and gets the point across.

Low or No Rendering becomes more graphic and emphasizes on color and design.

I will use Donna from my comic Legend Catcher as an example.

Same design, different ways to render.

Same amount of rendering, different ways to stylize.

This was just some things to think about when looking at and creating art.

If you wanna check out the process in how I drew all these, check out my Ko-Fi for the video at https://www.ko-fi.com/tessshadowcast

Just some fun thoughts I had. If there are other points to make, let me know!

category of blorbo called "technically i like them but fanons obsession with them to the exclusion of other characters pavloved me into having a negative reaction whenever i see them"

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