oooh have you ever done a post about the ridiculous mandatory twist endings in old sci-fi and horror comics? Like when the guy at the end would be like "I saved the Earth from Martians because I am in fact a Vensuvian who has sworn to protect our sister planet!" with no build up whatsoever.
Yeah, that is a good question - why do some scifi twist endings fail?
As a teenager obsessed with Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone, I bought every single one of Rod Serling’s guides to writing. I wanted to know what he knew.
The reason that Rod Serling’s twist endings work is because they “answer the question” that the story raised in the first place. They are connected to the very clear reason to even tell the story at all. Rod’s story structures were all about starting off with a question, the way he did in his script for Planet of the Apes (yes, Rod Serling wrote the script for Planet of the Apes, which makes sense, since it feels like a Twilight Zone episode): “is mankind inherently violent and self-destructive?” The plot of Planet of the Apes argues the point back and forth, and finally, we get an answer to the question: the Planet of the Apes was earth, after we destroyed ourselves. The reason the ending has “oomph” is because it answers the question that the story asked.
My friend and fellow Rod Serling fan Brian McDonald wrote an article about this where he explains everything beautifully. Check it out. His articles are all worth reading and he’s one of the most intelligent guys I’ve run into if you want to know how to be a better writer.
According to Rod Serling, every story has three parts: proposal, argument, and conclusion. Proposal is where you express the idea the story will go over, like, “are humans violent and self destructive?” Argument is where the characters go back and forth on this, and conclusion is where you answer the question the story raised in a definitive and clear fashion.
The reason that a lot of twist endings like those of M. Night Shyamalan’s and a lot of the 1950s horror comics fail is that they’re just a thing that happens instead of being connected to the theme of the story.
One of the most effective and memorable “final panels” in old scifi comics is EC Comics’ “Judgment Day,” where an astronaut from an enlightened earth visits a backward planet divided between orange and blue robots, where one group has more rights than the other. The point of the story is “is prejudice permanent, and will things ever get better?” And in the final panel, the astronaut from earth takes his helmet off and reveals he is a black man, answering the question the story raised.
Darkstalker redesign!
Finally I am free from Calculus and can do art.
Anyways the changes from my previous design are small but I think it will help with animating expressions.
Lamb animation test !! (: with sound version
Still don't know how to use this tool. I just edit the camera in an editing software
This is out of genuine curiosity as a beginner animator but I often see this from animators that I looked up to (having to draw the whole thing in a shot but have a square surrounding a specific part, which I’m assuming that’s where the camera focuses on). Is this like a feature in the program that you use or is the square individually drawn to know where the camera should be focusing on?
The rectangle is always there! It's the camera so anything outside of it won't be seen in the final output. Every animation program should have some variation of it
do you miss the charm of the 90s/00s web where sites had actual personality instead of the same minimalistic theme? are you feeling drained by social media and the constant corporate monopoly of your data and time? do you want to be excited about the internet again? try neocities!!
neocities is a free hosting website that lets you build your own html website from scratch, with total creative control. in their own words: "we are tired of living in an online world where people are isolated from each other on boring, generic social networks that don't let us truly express ourselves. it's time we took back our personalities from these sterilized, lifeless, monetized, data mined, monitored addiction machines and let our creativity flourish again."
web3 has been overtaken by capitalism & conformity. websites that once were meant to be fun online social spaces now exist solely to steal your data and sell you things. it sucks!! building a personal site is a great way to express yourself and take control of your online experience.
the best part about making your own site is that you can do literally whatever the hell you want! focus on a specific subject or make it a wild collection of all your interests. share your art! make a shrine for one of your interests! post a picture of every bird you see when you step outside! make a collection of your favorite blinkies! the world is your oyster !! here are some cool example sites to inspire you: recently updated neocities sites | it can be fun to just look through these and browse people's content! space bar | local interstellar dive bar creature feature | halloween & monsters big gulp supreme peanutbuttaz | personal site dragodiluna linwood | personal site patho grove | personal site
sound interesting? here are some guides to help you get started, especially if you aren't familiar with html/css sadgrl.online webmastery | a fantastic resource for getting started with html & web revival. also has a layout builder that you can use to start with in case starting from scratch is too intimidating web design in 4 minutes | good for learning coding basics w3schools | html tutorials templaterr | demo & html for basic web elements eggramen test pages | css page templates to get started with sadgrl background tiles | bg tiles rivendell background tiles | more free bg tiles
want your site to be cool? here's some fun stuff that i've found blinkies-cafe | fantastic blinkie maker! (run by @transbro & @graphics-cafe) gificities | internet archive of 90s/00s web gifs internet bumper stickers | web bumper stickers momg | gif gallery 99 gif shop | 3d gifs 123 guestbook | add a guestbook for people to leave messages cbox | add a live chat box moon phases | track the phases of the moon gifypet | a little clickable page pet adopt a shroom | mushroom page pet tamaNOTchi | virtual pet crossword puzzle | daily crossword imood | track your mood neko | cute cat that chases your mouse pollcode | custom poll maker website hit counter | track how many visitors you have
also, there's actually a pretty cool community of people out there who want to bring joy back to the web! melonland project | web project/community celebrating individual & joyful online experiences. Also has an online forum melonland intro to web revival | what is web revival? melonking manifesto | status cafe | share your current status nightfall city | online community onio.cafe | leave a message and enjoy the ambiance sadgrl internet manifesto | yesterweb internet manifesto | sadly defunct, still a great resource reclaiming online social spaces | great manifesto on cultivating your online experience
i want everyone to make a neocities site because it's fun af and i love seeing everyone's weird personal sites that they made outside of the control of capitalism :) say hi to me on neocities
I really just love dragon culture. Very little is confirmed so just about anything can be written, drawn, or said and it's always so creative!
I love how the wings interlock with each other and how their little feet plod around in the dirt. Despite being a still image you can easily imagine the movement and patterns of their dance.
Someday I want to make an animatic of dragons dancing and I'll definitely try to incorporate wing holding into the steps.
The first time she's ever gotten to dance
Sunset in the bkg was actually a picture I took (edited obv)
I love the expressions on these guys. The faces look so squishy and cool
Next up in the requests: @threemoonwatchers suggested Fathom and @incorporeal-entity suggested Clearsight, so I decided to draw them together! This is one of my favorite scenes of them, where they meet for the first time and Clearsight is overjoyed to see Fathom. She’s seen him in countless visions and already feels like they’re best friends, and while Fathom hasn’t met Clearsight until now, I imagine he’s so, so happy to meet someone who has faith and trust in him after a lifetime being shunned by his tribe. They both got happy endings, but it hurts my heart to know they probably never saw each other again after the events of Darkstalker.
Just in case you forget this exists.
It exists.
Impulsive shihosaki drawing
them
Lil guy I made. Been experimenting with icewing designs since the head spines are so difficult. Always trying to make them easier to animate and such.
Don't have a story for this guy, just some good practice. Unfortunately he looks kind of like Rick from Rick and Morty.njust the color scheme.
Wing armor!
I tried keep the armor fairly minimal to avoid adding too much weight to the wings. People have suggested covering the wing with chainmail, but i feel like the weight from that would render flight impossible or at the very least difficult. This configuration protects the most likely place to be struck by a weapon, those being the front outer edges of the wing. I’d imagine the armor can also be used sort of like a shield that can block incoming slash and such!
I like Wings of Fire and Cult of The Lamb. I like to animate and I'm still struggling to find my own art style
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