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[ March 3rd, 2023 ] Mythic Days #28 - Esme La Fay ​🟡​


Ravi-Sama
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The Seductive Librarian  

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  1. 1. Rate Esme La Fay

    • Faptabulous!
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    • Faptastic!
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    • Yummy
      4
    • Meh
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30 minutes ago, garadron said:

The good thing here is that people who prefer Venus are getting some good art from her. The bad thing here is that people who prefer Ben are crossing fingers right now hoping that the girls they want to see as Mythics won't be done by Venus (like Albane and Kelina in my case).

I'm not a big fan of Albane or Kelina, so I too am hoping Venus doesn't get stuck with them. 😉

So does the artist who draws the poses always also draw the affection scenes? I hadn't thought about it before tbh.

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I am just enchanted by Esme. I haven't gotten her yet so I can't comment on her upgraded poses. I think her 0-star pose is very well done especially the animated one. If I have to critique, it would be the same thick line art that I saw on Claudia. However on Esme, my eyes keep drawn away from it for some reasons (2 to be exact 😋). I like the details on the lace. I can almost sense the different textures of her clothing from the coloring. The silkiness of her lingerie, the rough lace on her hat. RNG, please give us a villain daily contest tomorrow! I don't want to wait any longer to get her. And KK needs to fix her stat.

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4 hours ago, Ravi-Sama said:

Ironically, all of these L5s, that have mythic quality, were drawn by "Venus."  I'd like to add Neferkitty, Sofia, Caroline, & Lexie to that list.  I think they're gorgeous.

Interesting, I did think that Skye and Elisa would be the same artist, as they look similar, didn't know they were all Venus tho.
I half exspected them to be drawn by whoever did mythic housemaid, and she happens to be my favorite mythic art.

Not the biggest fan of Neferkitty, (not a member of the melon squad)
Caroline is really good tho, and I do not have Lexie, so unable to comment on her.

Sofia... there is something about the face in the first pose that I just can't deal with.
It just dosen't feel right. Her second pose is fire tho, but the later poses removes all clothing, meaning a lot of chances for details and extra stuff is gone,
and thus is just kind of meh.

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Il y a 4 heures, garadron a dit :

@DvDivXXX that's some serious salt from you towards people who don't share your taste :P

It's fine if people don't share the same tastes; but replacing a character that already exists and you like by one you don't like (or like a lot less) kinda sucks. There's enough Ben's duck faces out there to satisfy everyone who likes them. Having a bit of change will satisfy more people. Having more of the same will just satisfy the same people over and over again.

I'm in team "Less duck faces, more genuine smiles", but I'm getting all mythic girls regardless. Can't blame me for the extra shards 😛

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6 hours ago, DvDivXXX said:

 

So yeah, I'll need to get into the habit of saving v=1,2,3 etc. of such pics before they get changed for v=4 or 5. Assuming they even let Venus make another MD after this second "commercial failure". :(

She´s not that bad man.. santa claudia got changed because she simply didn´t look like her at all.. that´s what a lot of people complained about.
I could bet they´ll keep lisa oh well esme I guess :p.. the way she is now..and the poses aren´t bad (though I feel like the 3star is kinda weird..probably because of the very different pose size?)

Looks like a bad MD again ..a shame tbh.. she has a highly appreciated parody and she´s pretty much broken blessings wise with the double eye and hair color.

 

@Liliat It´s not the duckfaces people (well at least I) like about ben´s art :P (but pretty much everything else 🤣)

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With the (hopefully) bugged base stats we see at the moment it's no surprise that some players don't go for her. There were not so much complaints about Esme in comparison to Santa Claudia and so I don't think they will reduce the problems with Esme only to her art.

We have to wait until the end of the MD how much shards will left. A correction in the stats or a relevant Contest can change a lot.

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5 hours ago, Methos2 said:

RNG, please give us a villain daily contest tomorrow! I don't want to wait any longer to get her. And KK needs to fix her stat.

6 minutes ago, bolitho76 said:

A correction in the stats or a relevant Contest can change a lot.

RIP.  Crappy DC.  No excuse to get her today.

image.png.0d698df5f0442bff9c54091da57f8619.png

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7 hours ago, EpicBacon said:

whoever did mythic housemaid, and she happens to be my favorite mythic art.

That was Ben. All of the MD except exactly Santa Claudia and this one were drawn by Ben. Housemaid is one of his best, I agree. Although it's clearly Ben's style and not similar to Venus'. I know these kind of things can be hard or even impossible to guess or perceive for people who aren't particularly interested  in examining art in fine details and/or didn't go to Art school. It's obvious to people like me who check both boxes, though.

------------

As always, a general reminder of how art is being done for this game:

  1. The Writer decides what happens and gives a general description (Edit: oh, and the dialogue, too ^^ I'm fairly sure they do it at this stage, in Kinkoid's process); then it goes to step 2.
     
  2. The main Artist, typically what would be called a penciller in comic books, but Kinkoid refers to this role as "the drafter" draws the layout and the bulk of the drawing (I understand this is routinely done on computer, almost certainly with a drawing tablet these days, but the work is essentially the same as making a full drawing with a pencil). Then it goes to step 3.
     
  3. The inker makes a new pass on the "pencil" art, adding black and white lines, textures and shades, to replace the original pencil art. It's important to note that inkers are artists too, even if they play a secondary role in this type of chain. There are good inkers and bad ones, and they can either enhance and improve the pencil art or ruin it. The best and also the worst ones tend to have their own style, their own little idiosyncracies a trained eye can recognize even when they're working over different artists' pencils. Then it goes to step 4.
     
  4. The colorist adds colors to the piece, and also shading and effects depending on the piece, the specific colorist and the deadline. Here too, although there will typically be some basic info such as "her hair are this color, her skin is that color, her eyes are such and such" for them to check, colorists are also artists in their own right, even if not unlike inkers, they play a secondary, complementary role in this type of chain process. The best ones have excellent understanding of anatomy, lighting, perspective and ideally, of the main artist's style. The worst ones don't necessarily reach that level, and can do seemingly random splashing like the one who worked on Claudia who didn't seem aware of which parts of a foot have a lighter skin tone and which parts have a darker skin tone for instance. Then it's done. Presumably the art director has a look at each step or at least after this final one to give the okay, but since this goes through at least 4 people, 3 of whom are trained visual artists, and we still saw stuff like two left foot get through, I don't think there's a foolproof checking process.

I'm always referring to the main Artist ("Drafter") for a given piece. There are some inkers and colorists whose work I recognize and prefer over others, but it's always much clearer who made the foundations of the art from scratch (well, from a description by the Writer but still, it's not like they go with very detailed scripts British writers style with angles, composition and framing either. It's "the Marvel Way" at most, aka a quick general idea of the scene or pose.). But it's important to know that a Ben piece or a Venus piece (or a Toon Dude piece, or one by any less prominent artist in their roster) can vary in final product quality and feel due to who the inker and the colorist are, how well their approaches match the main Artist's, etc.

And also that any praise or issue you might have which refers to things like the black outlines or the color theme shouldn't be addressed to the main Artist, because that's never done by them, and they have no control over it.

Alright, folks. Class dismissed. 👓🚬

Edited by DvDivXXX
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What I'm failing to grasp is the importance of the inker. Why can't two people (or one man) do the job? Why can't the colorist come just straight after the drafter? Why the intermediate role?

The details of the fabrics - who is responsible for that? I'm guessing that mainly the colorist.

Edited by OmerB
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i feel like its weird to have a girl have her first appearance be mythic, it always felt better when a girl who had been with us a long time finally got to take center stage, 

without the back story and the time playing with them in weaker forms mythics like esme are just another pair of tits, which we have plenty of if you are far enough to go for mythic girls

anyone else feel like more common girls should be mythic'ed before the devs made more oc girls?

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7 minutes ago, Kissmydick said:

i feel like its weird to have a girl have her first appearance be mythic, it always felt better when a girl who had been with us a long time finally got to take center stage, 

without the back story and the time playing with them in weaker forms mythics like esme are just another pair of tits, which we have plenty of if you are far enough to go for mythic girls

anyone else feel like more common girls should be mythic'ed before the devs made more oc girls?

Idk.. I don´t have an issue with myself..it in fact I know a lot of people that actually want original characters as mythics. I guess it´s just a classic "people like different stuff case" :P

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1 hour ago, Kissmydick said:

i feel like its weird to have a girl have her first appearance be mythic, it always felt better when a girl who had been with us a long time finally got to take center stage, 

without the back story and the time playing with them in weaker forms mythics like esme are just another pair of tits, which we have plenty of if you are far enough to go for mythic girls

anyone else feel like more common girls should be mythic'ed before the devs made more oc girls?

I think there's spot for both. 1 - classic girls get a super power up to Mythic status 2 - new girls are established as really powerful in comparison with others

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Ben can have fun with the billions of 3 stars and 1 stars. But Venus is by far the best artist in this game. Venus makes artwork of an actual professional level, like companies would hire someone like this, while HH art in the past has always been a slightly bit amateurish (but in a fun way!). I'm actually sad she doesnt get to do the Mythics on Comics, she'd be such an improvement over there.

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11 hours ago, OmerB said:

What I'm failing to grasp is the importance of the inker. Why can't two people (or one man) do the job? Why can't the colorist come just straight after the drafter? Why the intermediate role?

Because (good) drawing isn't done fully formed from scratch in one go straight from the blank page to the details. Only (bad) amateurs do that (starting to draw small details of the hair before we even know the overall body position). Or extremely experienced artists when they're in a rush, like when they make quick sketches next to their signature for people who wait in line at comics conventions, or when they're story-boarding, our outlining to get a rough idea how they want to proceed.

The main artist will typically start by drawing very basic shapes to vaguely outline where the character will be, what shape would their skeleton take in the pose they want to draw from the angle and perspective they're approaching it with. Very old school: with a very light touch using a regular pencil (so it's easy to erase when using professional-grade (expensive) sheets of paper). A little less old school: using a light blue pencil instead of a regular one, as scanners can be set up not to see them later on once the inker is done so the pencils don't need to be erased (and collectors and fans can appreciate every step of the black and white part of the process when they buy an original page). Then, gently and in different steps (varies from artist to artist, everyone has their own process, but typically even a painter, at least someone with a non-abstract style will start by drawing at least a rough sketch on the blank canvas before painting over it. They don't just start painting the shades on the lady's dress right away just because that's the part you'll see in the finished product. (Good) artists visualize more than what's shown, they essentially build a 3D model in their heads and then they outline what would be visible from the angle they decide to pick. Say the lady has a very long dress with fairly thick and curly fabric and you can't see her legs behind it. That doesn't mean the artist didn't picture, layout or even draw her legs, so that they can add the dress knowing how it will look in this position. The penciller/drafter/main artist does a lot of work you don't get to see as such but which is the foundation for the piece. Then, in most cases (again the process can vary a lot from artist to artist and also depending on how realistic or detailed their style is), they'll do multiple passes, changing and delineating things more and more precisely as they go, each part made to fit in relation to all the other parts (true for any subject, but especially for a human character). And eventually, they end up with a finished piece that's already complete in its own right, that is a fully detailed pencil drawing. Not just a rough sketch.

Not old school at all but almost 100% definitely what's done for this and most video games these days (but also more and more for comics and animated films etc.): using a computer, they emulate this process with multiple layers. The obvious advantage is that anything can be altered, removed, changed, experimented with even after the fact. The "pencils" phase (or even the layout then the pencil phases, if the artist wants to) can each be on a different layer that can be added or removed from the picture with one click. The downside, obviously, is that there is no such thing as an original, tangible, actual physical drawing on a piece of paper that you can hold in your hands and see where the paper gave way to the pencil and then the pen or brush, where the artist corrected something by adding white paint then redrawing over it, etc. (Please no one makes a joke about NFTs here ^^).

This is a similar revolution to how music used to be recorded and engineered up for most of the 20th century and how it's radically changed since computers started packing enough power to take over.

After all of that, the inker comes in and cleans up the work (at the most basic level). The thing is that when using comics-style drawings you can't keep all of the nuances of the original pencil art, because it won't pop and it won't all be as visible when printed or used in a game etc, and especially after adding color. So you need an artist to go back to where a very subtle outline has been drawn with bits of shade and other details, and replace that with a single line (to summarize and simplify).

The music analogy still works very well, there. It's a very usual and understanding practice for the recording, the mixing and the mastering processes to each be done by a different sound engineer. Not just to save time and set up a chain work, but also because after hearing every part of every instrument a thousand time as you recorded them for a song, you're not exactly in the right head-space to take it all in as a whole as if you were hearing it for the first time and start mixing it into a cohesive whole across the available sonic space . So you pass it to someone else with similar skills to whom what you recorded actually is fresh and they'll approach it for the mix in a way you couldn't have done yourself (unless you took a long break in between the two stages).

There's that for comics too, obviously, both aspects. In France and a bunch of other European countries, there's still a hundred-year old tradition for most artists to do everything themselves (everything visual at least, writers are still very common) from the very first storyboard to the very last bit of color and even lettering (as in physically writing the dialogue in the spech bubbles using the same font; up to the 90s and a bit beyond this was another job on its own: a letterer; nowadays there are computer fonts used instead in most cases). As a result, it's also typically expected that a French comic book artist will release maybe one 46-page album every couple of years or so, or maybe once a year. In the USA, it's 25 pages every month no matter what for each series, so obviously having working as a chain became standardized and common place. In Japan it's what, 100 page a week? ^^ So there, even though most comics are in black and white for the most part, so no colorist needed, they have multiple people working on every stage at once. There's typically one main artist still, kind of a similar role to the director for a movie, let's say, but then they have one assistant who will draw all of the buildings, another all of the vehicles, one inker for applying various patterns or grids for various shades of gray, another to ink all the hair, another for the character's outlines etc.

12 hours ago, OmerB said:

The details of the fabrics - who is responsible for that? I'm guessing that mainly the colorist.

Not even sort of. It's the drafter.

For instance, here's the original draft of Bridgette's 0-star by "Venus", before inking and coloring (and of course you can compare it with the final version in game or on the wiki). See what I mean about how subtle and detailed the pencil work is (or pencil effect on her drawing tablet working on Photoshop or similar). But the entire drawing is there and it stands tall on its own. The bulk of the work is done. Both the inker and colorist did a great job there, I must say, it's far from just tracing, just like mixing an album is far from just making sure you can roughly hear all the instruments and vocals. But as I said, it's still more on the finishing touch side of things than what the main artist produces.

Spoiler

image.png

Anyways. You can look it up if you're interested, there are plenty of sites, video tutorials and other places where you can see how this kind of artwork is typically done step by step. Cheers.

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It's an interesting and detailled description of the process of professionnal drawing Div, but i'd add just my two cents:
- While it's mostly how the job is done in the comics' industry, it's not exactly true to how Kinkoid works, or at least, not from what i have seen from the studio (for example, what they call drafts, are more often than not, well, really drafts, not pencils, far from it... (which explains why some of Ben's drawings in the story are different level of 'good')
- More important, the drawing you show as an example qualify 100% as an ink in my perspective... In fact, you just need to to watch the colored version to guess that only the colorist came after Venus on that one (mostly replacing a few folds in the fabric with not outlined shades of color) - so, why do you call it a pencil, if i may ask?

(noticing that i may be the subject of a whole new thread, by the way, as it's not speaking of the newest mythic girl anymore)

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Good points, Joe. Come to think of it, I'd say the Kinkoid process diverges from the standard I described mostly around the inking phase. My understanding is that some regular artists like Venus or Ben in some cases likely do their own ink jobs when possible, or perhaps the equivalent of a "rough mix" (going back to the music production analogy). But in a hurry (especially in Ben's case, and I think more so for adventure mode scenes when he was still doing them than for poses or affection scenes) or maybe for newer artists, they probably rely (a lot) more on the inker to flesh out the piece. Still, even Ben has some details that are always recognizable throughout his contributions, even when the ink job was clearly done by someone else (and many someone else over time).

I know the example I've shown is actually pencils and inks. If you zoom in on the hair, face or clothing you can still see a lot of clearer lines ("pencils") that were indeed left not inked and used as guidelines by the colorist before getting removed. But the main black lines ("inks") had already been applied at that stage, that's true. It's just the best example of Venus' work I had on hand that showed earlier steps. (I'd love to see more early sketches etc. though).

It's true we're getting a bit off-topic by now, although it's still related since the talk of the town about this MD is how the player base reacts differently to Venus' work compared to Ben's. A thread about art in general wouldn't stick, or at least I haven't found an angle that would. I never went into that much details before, but I've explained the gist of it quite a few times in the past. There are players who don't really know or care, or aren't particularly curious how it works and tend to think of "The Artist" as one entity for each piece, or even for the whole game in a few cases. ^^ Then there are players more interested in art and/or with a trained eye already. I'm not sure we could keep a discussion going on the topic without running into a circle relatively quick. Plus, I'm passionate about it as are other regulars, but it can be exhausting to discuss at length too often.

I won't go further down the rabbit hole, you're right. (Or if there's interest, I can split this discussion to its own thread and give it a try). Thanks. ❤️ 

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Catching up on a couple of posts I forgot to answer before:

16 hours ago, Kissmydick said:

without the back story and the time playing with them in weaker forms mythics like esme are just another pair of tits, which we have plenty of if you are far enough to go for mythic girls

I don't think so, it really depends on the design and personality the new girl has. Characters like Matcha, Alexa or Radka debuted as Mythics and turned out pretty popular (with several variants in smaller formats since then). And the reverse can be true: a character like Titania who had been with us for years and appeared in both the adventure mode and multiple variants before getting her Mythic version didn't prove very popular, for instance.

On 3/4/2023 at 6:42 AM, Julius Fox said:

So does the artist who draws the poses always also draw the affection scenes? I hadn't thought about it before tbh.

Typically, yes. The only counter-examples I can think of (though they are very notable) are the series that were transferred over from HCL. There, not just the artist but the art style and technique were completely different between the poses and affection scenes, and that's still the case for all these "Alt." girls except for the few that where reworked or remade (mainly Lyrsa).

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Since many clearly missunderstood my jest of not going for Esme because of my low Gem count🤭 i sincerelly appologise Many people dont understand my sometimes sarcastic dry sense of comedy😥 same as Hollymolly she became my most expensive mythic so far 10k kobans and 5sandalwood used hope next mythic day gives a more lucky Rng will be a while before I go for revival again since I only miss some of the 6 earliest mythics so save mode for a while😴

Screenshot_20230305_181822_Kiwi Browser.jpg

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Two SP and over 300 combats for 22 shards. I give up on getting her this time around. It isn't because I cannot do it. I have RL cash to make it happen. I need to finish getting other Mythics to a playable state, and feel like that is where my money (game and RL) needs to go for now. As for Esme herself, I feel like she has had breast implants; they are way too rounded, with almost no upper tissue (like a C cup augmented to DD). Some people like this, but I prefer to see the natural breasts of the girls.

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I'm amazed this mythic girl isn't more popular. Not saying I'd expect her to be the most popular or anything, but double hair *and* double eye colors, and she's got over 70k shards left over? Is playful that wretched an element? I was gonna go for her, because of the double colors, and the fact that I've only got four mythics right now (Santa Claudia, Lunar Bunny's Mom, Angelic Lenaelle and Lovebot Norou). None are playful. Could anyone give an opinion as to whether or not I should pick her up or let her go? Thank you in advance!

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17 minutes ago, Irvbert Pervington said:

None are playful. Could anyone give an opinion as to whether or not I should pick her up or let her go? Thank you in advance!

If you can get her, I would go for it. However, my situation is very different from yours (16 Mythics vs. 4), and she will be a factor in the Leagues, even with her lower stats.

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32 minutes ago, Irvbert Pervington said:

I'm amazed this mythic girl isn't more popular. Not saying I'd expect her to be the most popular or anything, but double hair *and* double eye colors, and she's got over 70k shards left over? Is playful that wretched an element? I was gonna go for her, because of the double colors, and the fact that I've only got four mythics right now (Santa Claudia, Lunar Bunny's Mom, Angelic Lenaelle and Lovebot Norou). None are playful. Could anyone give an opinion as to whether or not I should pick her up or let her go? Thank you in advance!

If you like her, then go for her. The dual hair/eye colors makes up for her element. And your other 4 Mythics are all great elements(I'm jealous, I had to wait a year for my 1st Blue Mythic). None of the other Yellow Mythics have dual anything, so this is the one to get.

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  • Ravi-Sama changed the title to [ 03-Mar-23 ] Mythic Days #28 - Discussion - Esme La Fay ​🟡​
  • Ravi-Sama changed the title to [ March 3rd, 2023 ] Mythic Days #28 - Esme La Fay ​🟡​

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