References are a treasure, change my mind

Read from right to left (and click for better quality).

A very quick and messy edit, because I'm neck-deep in shit too busy with my studies and have no time for anything else. The fact my productivity is oscillating around zero certainly doesn't help. Thank you, pandemic.

I borrowed the upper panels from first chapter of "Mushishi", page 37. Here is the link.

The most cursed crossover nobody asked for...

...but I had to do. But let's start from the beginning.

My relationship with "Boku no Hero Academia" is pretty complicated. To be honest, it's one of the series I'm interested into, but don't want to read/watch. I mean, I'm very much into fan works: fan fiction, various AUs, fan arts, just everything. I also like the lore and several characters (or rather fans' interpretations of said characters). However, the story itself isn't interesting enough for me to get involved. That's why I prefer sticking to fanon, while supplementing information about canon with other sources (all hail TV Tropes).

Of course, my little interest in the plot doesn't stop me from making my own stories and OCs. I even created a lovechild for my favourite ship.

Meet Reimi. Isn't she cute?

However, as you can judge from post's title, OCs aren't what I'm going to focus on now.

Several days ago I was procrastinating taking a break from university's stuff and somehow ended on "Midsommar's" subreddit. After spending almost whole evening scrolling through memes and edits I got a crazy idea: what would happen if "Midsommar" got mashed with "Boku no Hero Academia"? Of course, random concepts like that tend to be the most absorbing and, after some time of thinking about it, I decided to draw Tomura Shigaraki as Dani.

And this is what this post is going to be about: drawing. So fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride!

But I can't draw without music, can I?

I just needed an excuse to say Technolorgy is my latest musical obsession.

As always, I begin with head. This time the drawing was done solely digitally, so I didn't have to worry about scanning it and transferring to my laptop.

Drawing without any references is a big no-no for me, so I had to have my browser opened. I always peek at photos of characters and situations I'm currently working on. This time I wanted to do something inspired by "Midsommar's" ending.

And I needed a good picture of this dress.

Because most of Shiggy's body was meant to be hidden by flowers, I didn't have to focus on it that much.

I only had to determine how big the dress would be.

However, I had a problem with face. Horikoshi's style differs much from mine and I couldn't decide if I wanted to copy it (which would look weird with my lining and colouring) or draw the face as I usually do it. I finally settled somewhere in the middle.

But let's be honest: Tomura's eyes are strange in general.

I also did a rough sketch of hair, so it would be easier for me to draw them later.

Don't mind the line above the forehead, I will explain it later.

When the sketch was ready I could do the line art. I decided to do the colourful one. However, it always causes problems with choosing right colour. But there is one MyPaint's feature that is extremely helpful with it.

Meet Scratchpad!

Before doing the line art I had to choose the skin colour. I decided on something similar to the one from anime: very pale with slight, sickly yellow tint. The line art had to be similar shade, but much darker.

I needed a few trials.

After this I could do the proper line art.

Not that there was much lining to do.

The album ended in the middle of lining and I decided to change the mood a little.

I had to make a break after second track, because my crush sent me a song to try. I usually don't listen to other things during albums, but a song from crush is a song from crush, I couldn't help it.

For me, line art is often one of the longest parts of creating an art piece. Not this time.

The reason is obvious.

After that I could upload the file to Krita and colour it.

Then I went back to MyPaint to work on face.

That grin came out creepier than I planned.

From what I've notices, there are two main schools of drawing wide smiles: with all teeth contoured or only slightly highlighted. I think it's obvious which one I follow...

Artistic choice or laziness? Decide for yourself.

Then I drew the scars...

Fun fact: I think scars are sexy.

...and proceeded to hair. And this is where the real fun started!

First step: determine the colours and paint the base.

I'll be honest: it was horror. Tomura's hair are long and unkempt and with my way of drawing... See it for yourself.

If you focus, you will be able to hear me screaming profanities.

Especially while cleaning the picture.

Quick check, if everything is fine.

After finishing hair, I could start drawing flowers.

And this is what the line was for.

It helped me with positioning the flower crown.

Painting the crown was tiring. And then I glanced at the dress' outline...

...and realised how fucked I was.

As my ex-girlfriend summed it up: "You chose a character with million tiny scars on his face to dress him in million flowers. Congratulations on ambition".

I planned to paint all flowers manually, so yeah, I was ambitious...

 I was painting flowers in layers to make it easier. I managed to do three...

I made layers I wasn't working on semitransparent to avoid confusion.

...before going "oh, fuck it!" and switching to Krita. Why? Because then I could just copy and paste this shit!

It sped up the work a little.

This artwork made me question my own sanity.

No, really!

When I was satisfied with amount of flowers, I switched back to MyPaint to fill the gaps.

This time the active layer is semitransparent.

 I also had to arrange the layers a little bit to make them look nice.

I think I'm done with painting those little assholes flowers for at least a year...

The last layer was just some splashes of colour to cover empty places...

This dress will haunt me in my nightmares.

...and done!

Never. Again.

Of course, that wasn't the end: I still had million tiny scars to do!

Stop fucking staring at me!

I drew the scars with a pencil and used a lighter colour than the big ones, so they wouldn't blend. Then I chose another pencil, drew a second layer around eyes and on the neck...

...and made it semitransparent.

After that I only had to choose the background.

The dress is very vivid, so plain colour was fine.

And done! After exporting the image to PNG I only had to frame it and add a copyright note. You can notice I decided to abandon my "standard" note in favour of my DeviantArt account link. No particular reason, I just got fed up with the previous one.

Anyway, here is the finished piece!

The May Queen... King... Damn, you get the idea.

You can see and download the HD version on my DeviantArt. (I hope everything works, I still don't get how to use Eclipse...)

And please, don't ask me, why Shigaraki. To be honest, I have no bloody idea...




Image sources:
Dani and flowers: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8772262/mediaviewer/rm1884590593

Fear is like onions: what are we afraid of?

Being scared is definitely horrible thing. Breath gets faster, pulse rises, hands start to sweat, sometimes you are on the verge of fainting... On the other side, many people like horrors. Some of them (like me) like the dark atmosphere usual horror works have. But probably most horror fans like the adrenaline rush being scared gives. Reading horror books, watching movies or playing games let us enjoy the experience without getting into actual danger. But why are horrors scary? What are we afraid of? Why are we afraid of it? I'll try to peel all the layers and see what's underneath fear.

Old? Yes. Relatable? As hell.

But first thing: why do we even need fear? Well, the answer is pretty easy and logical. Fear is quite important from evolutional point of view. Many things we are afraid of are, in fact, quite dangerous, which leads to avoiding them. Also, feeling of fear usually causes fight or flight response, very important while confronting extreme situations. This all let our ancestors survive. And, if something is useful for evolution, then it is preserved. Of course, there is a thing called "irrational fear", which means being afraid of things and situations that shouldn't scare us, but it's much more complex and dependant on psyche to talk about it now.

Okay, we know now fear is important part of our lives. So, ad rem: why are horrors so scary?

Let's start with a thing that appears in almost all horror works (and, to no one's surprise, is also connected to evolution!): darkness. Actually, it's one of the most basic things our ancestors were scared of and, though I'm not an evolution specialist, nor a psychologist, I think it's easy to explain why. Opposing to most predators, human is really shitty when it comes to functioning in the darkness, which made prehistoric people an easy prey for animals. Nowadays we don't have to worry about getting eaten, but we still are vulnerable without any source of light. Our vision, probably the most important sense, is weak and other senses don't compensate for it. Even fully armed, most people wouldn't be able to defend themselves in pitch darkness – they would end waving a weapon chaotically. Damn, we don't even need to be attacked to get harmed in the dark. Remember all these moments you tripped or bumped into something while going to the bathroom at night? Then you know what I mean.

Horror works usually use human's fear of darkness to build unsettling atmosphere. Because we associate dark places with danger, we know, we can expect epic shit when lights go out. We don't know when something will attack or, sometimes, what exactly will attack. This uncertainty is the worst. Also, human's mind often fills the blanks, so, when we can't see something, our imagination compensates for it and starts producing scenarios that are even worse than the reality. Sometimes even the most harmless things seem scary. Drowning everything in the darkness is probably the easiest way of invoking this.

Video games often utilise complete darkness in perfect way. You want to proceed, but are to scared to do so...

Another really popular thing used in horror works is uncanny valley. The term itself isn't related to horror, at least not only. The concept is quite simple: the more something (robot, doll, animated character etc.) resembles human, the more positively people react to it, but once it reaches the point it's almost perfectly human-like, but doesn't imitate it ideally, then this something becomes creepy. There are many explanations, what exactly causes this feeling, and my favourite one (and, I think, the most appropriate when it comes to perceiving horror works) is the one about clash of our expectations and reality. I mean, when something behaves more human, than it is expected to behave, then it causes uneasiness. It also works other way: if something looks like human, but doesn't behave like one, then it's uncanny.

Horror authors use uncanny valley in many creative ways. Sometimes only slightly deforming a creature, that otherwise is perfectly human, can give creeps. Audience will feel from the very beginning that something is off. Actually, I think that's why zombies are so scary: they look like people, they were once people... But they aren't. They don't think (mostly), can't communicate, move in very peculiar way... Horrible, isn't it?

Zombies link to other thing people often are scared of: death. We have no idea, what happens, after we die. Okay, human body decomposes, but what else? Is there any life after death? What about ghosts? Do they really exist? We don't know. And people are afraid of things they don't understand. On the other side, death is certain. Everyone dies, it's a law of nature. When this law is defied, then something is definitely wrong.

Horror works use death related motives in many different ways. Firstly, already mentioned zombies – dangerous, almost animal-like creatures, that used to be human. The more hideous the walking dead is, the better. Rotting corpse itself can give creeps, walking rotting corpse is terrifying. The situation can get even worse: walking rotting corpse of a person we used to know. Watching someone dear to us turn into disgusting, brain-eating monster is truly heartbreaking.

One-shot "Survival of the Dead" by Katsuhisa Kigitsu deals with this topic quite well, especially with psychological aspects.

Ghosts are even worse. I think everyone has heard at least once theory that ghosts come to world of living when they have an unfinished business. Said business is usually revenge. Now, let's think: death is something permanent and unavoidable. How much determined must a person be to bend it and come back from the dead? How much hate must they have? Isn't it scary?

Also, ghosts don't have mortal body, so they are much more difficult to get rid of. They can get everywhere. If they only roam around – it's unsettling, but pretty harmless. But if they have any powers, then they are nearly unstoppable. Remember Stephen King's "The Shining"? Personally, I think it's one of the best horror stories in the world. The fact characters can't fight their spiritual opponents only adds to already nightmarish situation they are in.

Actually, that's how we got to most effective way of invoking fear in audience: helplessness. When characters face dangerous situation, but can somehow deal with it, we are nervous, but hope for the best. Depriving us of the luxury of hope is the most cruel thing creators can do. Of course, there are people, who just shrug and wait with resignation for the worst, but they are minority. Let's be honest: it's hard to observe someone's demise while knowing nothing can be done, especially, when we are not sure how bad can everything get.

However, shoving characters in too many hopeless situations, instead of "Oh shit, I'm scared" reaction, produces "Shit, here we go again" one.

Horror video games are perfect medium when it comes to using helplessness (and, to be honest, scaring in general). Here the player is the helpless one. Of course, some of them give us some weapons, means of hiding and similar, but let's be honest: defending ourselves needs skill and, sometimes, almost impossible luck. If we lack this skill, we are doomed, if game doesn't like us, we are also doomed, if we lack skill and game doesn't like us... Well, you know. What I try to say is in video games we not only need a lot of courage to proceed through scary things, but also have at the back of our minds that the situation doesn't depend on us. Player is just a prey hunted by an unholy monster/vengeful ghost/eldritch abomination/put there whatever you are afraid of. Just a little. Helpless. Prey. Who wouldn't be scared shitless in a situation like that?

Of course, these aren't all methods of scaring the audience, I chose only the most basic and therefore common ones. Also, I'm aware they don't have to work on everyone. Some people are afraid of dying, others aren't bothered by it etc. There is also one thing we shouldn't forget: even the most effective scare gets completely useless when overused. At one point the viewer gets used to it. That's why the best horror creators don't show their all cards in the very beginning, but dose the dread.

Okay, I know throwing someone a jumpscare in the face is also effective and doesn't need any talent, but damn, where's the fun then?!






Image sources:
Meaning of fear: https://www.memecenter.com/fun/2381807/real-meaning-of-fear
"Layers of Fear 2" screenshot: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steam/apps/1029890/ss_057ee487a8b109529925ff80f4a8e3c3c721405b.jpg?t=1560523840
"Survival of the Dead": http://fanfox.net/manga/survival_of_the_dead/c000/3.html
Stretchy Pennywise: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1396484/mediaviewer/rm2094943488