Itz-offline - Itz_Offline

a couple snippets from a presentation i gave at school this past week on storyboarding!!

‼️DISCLAIMER: I am still a student and have only worked on student and indie projects! This is just stuff that I personally find helpful as an amateur, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt!

Happy boarding, friends! ✍️💕

HII my character & shape design tips PDF is now available! ^_^ hope you enjoy !!

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"Side by side, they were very much alike, in similarity less of lineament than of manner and bearing,

a correspondence of gesture which bounced and echoed between them so that a blink seemed to reverberate, moments later, in a twitch of the other's eyelid.

Their eyes were the same color of gray, intelligent and calm. She, I thought, was very beautiful, in an unsettling, almost medieval way which would not be apparent to the casual observer.“

~ Donna Tartt, The Secret History

Being a young adult is so strange. You enter a coffee shop. The 20 year old girl waiting behind you cried all night because she just came to a new city for university and she feels so alone. That 27 year old guy over there works a job he is overqualified for, he lives with his parents and wants to move out but doesn't know what to do about it. That one 24 year old dude already has a car, a house, and a job waiting for him once he graduates thanks to his dad's connections. The 26 year old barista couldn't complete his higher education because he has to work and take care of his family. The 28 year old girl sitting next to you has no friends to go out with so she is texting her mother. That couple (both 25 years old) are married and the girl is pregnant. The 29 year old writing something on her laptop has realized that she chose the wrong major so she is trying to start all over. We are not alone in this, but we are actually so alone. Do you feel me

[So similar, yet so different]

What makes an outfit practical or impractical to fight in? Would an acrobat's outfit with some decent shoes be okay to fight in? Any suggestions on how to make an outfit frilly/girly without sacrificing (too much) practicality? (Trying to come up with practical[ish] Magical Girl outfits - know it's not your genre probably - there are certain expectations for frilliness even for tomboyish characters)

You’re, basically, looking for three things: How well canyou move in it, does it give potential foes anything to grab, and does it offerany protection?

If you can’t move freely in your clothes, you can’t fight inthem. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about them being tight enough torestrict movement, or if they make it difficult to walk around. Tight skirts,high heels, tailored suits; it doesn’t matter; they’ll all limit your abilityto fight.

With footwear, you’re looking primarily at how well you canstand and move in it. Shoes and boots designed to grip the floor are (usually)the best options here. So, things like sneakers or work boots are good options.Rubberized soles will help you keep your footing far better when you’restanding in someone’s blood than a dress shoe or high heels.

Things like long coats, ties, free flowing skirts, scarves, hoodies,or of course capes, won’t usually limit your mobility, but they can give anopponent something to grab. Once that happens, that article of clothing willlimit your mobility (some). This is also a factor that’s difficult tocompletely eliminate. Practiced martial artists can, and do, go for collar orlapel grabs on clothing you might think would pass. That said, there are somespecial cases here.

If the article of clothing will tear away freely, it’s (kindof) a wash. You’re still talking about losing clothes, which isn’t usuallysomething you want, but it means you’re not getting dragged out of position byan attacker.

If the combatant is ready for it, it’s possible to usesomething like this as a firing point to retaliate. If you know, roughly, wheretheir hand is, it’s much easier to extrapolate where the rest of them is inrelation to you. This still doesn’t make fighting in long flowing garments a goodidea.

The final factor, almost by definition, doesn’t really applywith magical girls as a genre, and can get a little weird when you’re talking aboutany superhuman characters.

Ideally, if you’re planning to get into a fight, you’ll wantdurable clothing that will take a few hits, and hopefully shield you from harm.Materials like leather and denim hold up much better than lighter fabrics.Insulation in a jacket will take some kinetic force from a strike (not a lot,but still), so it’s better than just jeans and a tee, or even a denim jacket.This also gets into a discussion we’ve had before. Protection is often about makingtradeoffs.

An insulated leather jacket will (slightly) reduce yourmobility. It will give an opponent something they can grab. But, it will alsooffer protection from stray hits and while parrying incoming strikes. It won’tprotect against gunshots, or against a sword, and if that’s what your characterwas likely to face, they’d need armor to deal with those threats instead.

Somewhat obviously, exposed skin isn’t offered anyprotection. Technically, skin itself is protection for your body, and it doesfunction as your first line of defense against infection, but that’s mostlyacademic in this context.

This is also where, magical girls, and most superherosubgenres, deliberately start straying from reality, without actually being unrealistic (in theliterary sense). What matters is if your character has some kind of protectionfrom the threats they’re facing. It doesn’t matter if that’s an ancient alienartifact, a mystical gemstone, or the weaponized power of friendship. That is what protects your character,not her denim vest. You’re also talking about characters where the threats theyface are, effectively, impossible to mitigate through mundane means. Again, aleather jacket, no matter how snazzy, won’t do much against a death beam fromsome snarling murderbeast, or blows from a sword with an enchantment thatdrains the soul from anyone who touches it. As I’ve said before, you selectyour armor to deal with the threats you’re likely to face, and when it comes tomagical girls, those threats are (almost always) going to be far beyondanything you could physically protect against.

Normally, you wouldn’t want to fight off an arisen god ofwar in a school girl uniform, but it’s not like a flak vest would offer anymore protection against a threat like that.

-Starke

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