AMKitsune: @D_C_N: Yes. I'd imagine so at least. I think part of the reason that everyone finds Katia so relatable is that she essentially acts like any other 'normal' person would in her situation. She's not a brave adventurer willing to wipe out hoards of bandits for a chest of loot at the end of a cave or take on a giant frost troll. She essentially has the mind of a regular person thrust into an irregular situation (a regular person with alcohol problems,fireballs and telekinesis, but regular none the less). If she 'were' to kill someone, either accidentally or reluctantly on purpose, I'm imagine that she'd feel absolutely distraught afterwards. To the point of emotionally breaking down if I had to guess. The only reason I think she faired as she did with the big Imp was because she was forced into the situation beyond her will and it was a 'monster', not a 'person'. Of course you could always go down the 'killing someone' route, but I'd have to wish you the best of luck in writing it in both a believable way and a way in which your readers would feel comfy continuing with.
Saying all this, maybe Kazerad will have her kill someone at some point (on purpose) and not be too effected by it. I wouldn't imagine so though...
AMKitsune: Right, so I've read this chapter and I'm afraid that I wouldn't rate it as highly as the last one.
Please bare with me. I'll try to explain why as best I can.
Once again, they way in which you describe the landscape and the people in it is top notch, but I suspect that this chapter may have perhaps been a little 'too wordy'. Honestly, I've been a little unwell lately which has lead to me being somewhat tired which probably isn't doing my ability to focus any favours, but I found it quite hard to concentrate on this chapter and to fully absorb what was going on. Another reason for this may have been because 'not much of actual importance' seemed to be happening for most of the chapter. I'm not trying to say that it was boring or uneventful, but compared to the last chapter which had our protagonists fleeing through a dark forest trying to outrun death, not much seemed to happen in this chapter. To sum up the most notable events that I picked up on, there was the river crossing, the old man with the sword in the village and then meeting the soldiers. I realise that there was also a section at the end where we met this 'not-royalty' guy, but by this point, I was struggling to keep up with the story to the point where additional characters and events weren't really sticking in my mind.
Something else that I noticed which may have possibly been a contributing factor to my finding it harder to concentrate on this was the fact that much of the speech (and a fair few other sentences) weren't capitalised. Your sentences can often run on for quite a while, and while this can be great for adding to the overall feel of the story, it can sometimes 'lessen the point' that's being made. These longer sentences that often feel like they contain more than one subject combines with lack of capitalisation at the beginning of many of the speech sections (which comprise a great deal of the story), while technically making sense, also make the story harder to read in my opinion.
It's most likely my current lack of focus talking, but I feel that this chapter could have perhaps benefited from being written with slightly shorter, more succinct sentences. Something else to bare in mind with this critique is that I'm Dyslexic which means that while I'm lucky enough to be able to read most things as well as anyone else, I can struggle with the flow of text whenever there are grammatical errors or if it's not laid out particularly clearly. For the most part, your writing is very well laid out, but I just want to make it clear that my 'condition' makes it harder for me to understand what other people may have absolutely no problem with. Still, you may find it better to write these chapters in a program that automatically capitalises the first word of each sentence for you.
Finally, I may have had difficulty with this chapter simply because I didn't find many of the events in it particularly gripping. This is unfortunately just my personal opinion and I would have most likely kept that opinion regardless of how the sequences were written. Personally, I'd consider these sections 'filler material', meant to go between the main sections of interest. Going back to what I said earlier, while I understand that most of this chapter was spent travelling, there were a few times where I felt that the story was going to slow down and focus on that area for a bit. Places like the river crossing and settlement with the old man and child in it. Unfortunately, I feel that these sections were skimmed over too quickly and 'not enough time was spent on them'/'not enough of interest happened' to make them stand out from the 'filler' that was the time spent travelling between locations.
Just to make it perfectly clear, I don't want you to be disheartened by what must essential look like a big 'wall of negativity', but as it currently is, I found the chapter hard to engage with and consequentially, hard to get absorbed into. If I were to read this at another time, I may find it easier to follow along with the flow of the longer sentences and less intense story of this chapter, but right now, I'm afraid that I wasn't able to fully enjoy it. I'm currently on the fence as to whether I should post this or not. It feels knowing how critical this all is. I just hope that I was able to accurately pin point the reasons for why I found it hard to engage with.
Of course, I'm by no means an experienced writer myself, so pretty much all that I'm saying is based purely on my own opinions and observations. My suggestions are ones that I believe would make the story easier for me to read personally. I have no idea whether they would be of any benefit to anyone else. I'd certainly hope so, but I couldn't say for sure.
Once again, I hope that these thoughts may be of some benefit to you. My apologies if I rambled on a bit with some points or repeated myself. Being tired can do that XD
Best of luck with your future writing.
(As I am at the moment, I could spend forever rereading this critique and not be fully satisfied with it. For the sake of just getting it out there though, I'm just going to post it as it currently is.)
AMKitsune: @POMA: Keep referencing away. Unless you've either got a photographic memory or have drawn something so many times that you've developed a routine for it, there's absolutely no shame whatsoever in referencing existing materiel. Actually, you know what? There's no shame in referencing under any circumstances. Any new original work is equally important regardless of how it was made (with the obvious exception of straight up traces, which I maintain can still be useful for helping to learn the very basics, but not much beyond that).
Also, Katia's starting to look a little crazy there. Better give her a hug to calm her down a bit. XD
AMKitsune: @reiler12: I'm sorry, but what? I'll admit that I sometimes have difficulty understanding what you say (I'm guessing English may not be your first language?) but I suspect that you may be taking this picture a little too seriously. I'm pretty sure this isn't meant to seriously belittle any characters. Sure, it's ridiculous and doesn't make any real sense, but I think that's meant to be the point. Different people may 'ship' different characters with each other, that's just how people are (and again, I don't think this is even meant to be a serious picture).
While places like this tend to be full of relatively like-minded people with a shared interests (In this case, sad cats), You have to accept that different people have different likes and opinions.
We have absolutely no desire to censor people for having differing views and thoughts, but sometimes these views can be worded in ways that serve no purpose other than to make others feel bad about their own opinions (like saying something like "your interest in anthropomorphic animals is weird" or words to that effect. Most hobbies and pastimes are 'weird' when you look at the closely enough). These kinds of comments have no place here (or in any other decent community for that matter).
Personally, I'm not too keep on the whole 'male pregnancy' thing, but this picture's breaking none of the Booru's rules as far as I'm aware, so it has every right to be here. It's just a case of 'putting up' with the images that you don't particularly agree with for the sake of letting others enjoy them.
I realise that you may have strong feeling about some of the content on this Booru, but when commenting on something, above all else, try to consider how your comment will make everyone else feel. While we don't necessarily want this place turning into an echo-chamber with everyone agreeing with everything everyone says, it's important to voice your objections and concerns as considerately as you can.
We've already got a sad cat. There's no need for any sad fans.
AMKitsune: In the world of Tamriel where pretty much every other drink is alcoholic in some way, I wonder if alcoholism is a known problem and whether there's any kind of support for it? Or is Katia unique in having practically no tolerance for the stuff?
Either way, being as pissed as she is here, surely she'd just try to seduce the shop keeper instead of have any kind of rationally emotional response to the situation?
AMKitsune: I like to imagine that a complete stranger has just told her that they love her and want to always be with her, snuggle up with her, protect her, give her a place to live, feed her... You know, all the usual well meaning but ultimately creepy stuff that fans come up with.
Seriously, coming from someone you know would be somewhat ok, but from her perspective, all her fans would simply be random weirdo's. (and let's face it, we're all random weido's in one way or another XD)
AMKitsune: Beautiful work. I can't help but wonder why Rajirra always looks either sad, confused or more often, slightly pissed off. I know it's part of here character, but it's a shame we so rarely get to see her genuinely happy. Perhaps we'll see some character development with her in the comic that may lead to that some day? Who knows?
AMKitsune: I support this. I support it so much!
The idea that Lil' Katia has absolutely no idea how normal social interaction works, no sense of self perception and lets her excitement get the better of her. Simply precious.
(kind of reminds my of myself when I was little, except this is actually adorable XD)
AMKitsune: "Here we see a khajiit on the hunt for hugs.
It uses a visual display of affection to encourage unsuspecting onlookers into reciprocating these emotions in the form of a big loving hug.
It's believed that some Khajiit actually draw sustenance from these hugs.
Some Khajiit have been known to survive for weeks at a time without a supply of conventional food, surviving on mere crackers and hugs. How this is achieved is currently unknown, but most leading researchers in this field agree that it's bloody adorable :3"
AMKitsune: I hope you cleaned that sack out thoroughly first. Remember what happened the last time you got moon sugar residue mixed in with your Halloween goodies? Not pretty. Not pretty at all.
It took a good week for the swelling to subside...
AMKitsune: And yet, mere hours later, we get a massive flash update with a boat and everything! (although maybe not an 'update' in the conventional sense)
AMKitsune: @D_C_N: Ok, so I've had a read of this and wanted to start by saying that the environments were extremely well described. I could really feel the darkness closing in on the characters in the forest and the expansiveness of the plains. This however brings me onto my second point. With the exception of Katia, I had a hard time keeping track of the the names of the other characters, places, possibly factions if there were any. It may well just be me, but I found the introduction of so many new names in such a relatively short space to be a bit overwhelming. Because of this, I went through the story pretty much thinking of the characters in terms of 'group of bandits who kidnapped Katia' and 'bunch of guards giving chase', and even then, I sometimes found myself mixing up different characters. I suspect that the reason I've had this problem is a combination of the facts that most of the characters have similarly 'fantasy sounding' names (like the sorts of names you get in harry potter and lord of the rings) and the lack of time given to introduce them as separate characters.
You also did a good job of not letting any characters become the 'favourite' by making them 'too perfect' in any way (a problem that many fanfictions suffer from). I was really pleased (and pleasantly surprised) to see Katia written not as a 'damsel in distress' or the 'all conquering protagonist' but as an actual person as she appears in the comic itself. It may not sound like much, but I think it does so much to help make the story more believable and immersive (which is surely one of the best things a story can be, right?).
Honestly, this felt like a small slice of a much bigger story. Sure there were a couple of typo's here and there and a few sparse grammatical errors, but for the most part, it was fantastically written. the way it's written made it feel like I was reading an excerpt from a larger novel.
To summarise, an overall fantastic piece of writing that I feel was only let down by the lack of time devoted to introducing the individual characters (in a story this short with this many characters, I can see how that may be difficult to pull off though).
(Also, I notice that the link doesn't work any more. Did you take the story down?)
AMKitsune: @Kazerad: Incase you're referring to my comment, it's still there (link and all). Seeing as you now seem to know about this other booru's text handling plugin, I'll go ahead and try to delete my comment.
AMKitsune: @Armored-Struggle-Wagon: Very well, that's how you did. I pretty much have to agree with Valkaiser on this one. Her limbs are nicely proportioned, the armor's well detailed whilst keeping the same style as the rest of the image, the pose is believable and her expression is absolutely adorable.
Going back to Valkaiser's knee comment, I can see where there may be some confusion. Based on Katia's canon proportions, yes, her knee plate thingies sit just above the top of her boots. However, you should also bare in mind that canon Katia has quite stubby little legs that are about the same length as her torso while what you've drawn are closer to what you could call 'anatomically correct' proportions (Strictly speaking, Kazerads placement of Katia's knee guards doesn't make anatomical sense. As far as I can tell at least). Of course, what looks best depends on the style of drawing at the end of the day. Just like how a chiby bobble-headed character (not referring to Katia here) can look good in their own right despite being an anatomical abomination XD
Incase you're interested, I shifted her knee plates up a tad like Valkaiser suggested just to see how it looked.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hqlfha3st1n1pjd/katia%20knee%20edit.png?dl=0
(I also faffed around with the contrast/colours and antialiased it, but that was just out of a force of habit and not meant as criticism)
Again though, beside that, it's all pretty damn good :D (and I'll say again, absolutely adorable)
AMKitsune: @Kazerad: I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself.
http://a-m-kitsune.tumblr.com/post/131715992899/not-entirely-sure-why-i-even-did-this-its-not
I fully acknowledge that I have a problem and will seek help as soon as a support group for video making prequel fans makes itself available.
And once again Radian, fantastic work as usual :D.
AMKitsune: @POMA: Sure, her shoulder jumps around a bit, bit I'm going to tell you that you did a good job with it anyway because that's my opinion and I'm in a sharing mood :D.
AMKitsune: @Baz1S: When I rotate it, would you mind if I cropped out the empty space to the right, upped the contrast a tad and made the image a bit smaller? Or would you prefer it just rotated?
AMKitsune: It's not often that you see a character with such visually unique and striking markings. Even less so when combined with 'kitty mutton chops' XD.
AMKitsune: This is so awesome! While I'm not a massive starwars nut, I'm familiar enough to know what scene this is meant to be and it has to be said that the parallels here are just perfect.
The painting's also bloody brilliant, just in case I hadn't made that clear XD
AMKitsune: @KillerfishSG: There've been a few, but not as many as recent clothed pictures.
@POMA: Ooh, what a conundrum! with every bite, she gets less and less hungry but looses more and more of her dignity! Whatever should she do?
Seriously though, great job on this. The only thing that's missing here is her lighter chest colouration. Besides that though, top notch stuff :D
AMKitsune: Technically speaking, wouldn't this be considered more of an art jam than a collaboration?
Although, could you imagine getting a bunch of the artists here to simultaneously work on a single picture? I don't know if it would result in something fantastic or end up a complete disaster XD
AMKitsune: Amazing painting.
Has to be said though, I'm not sure what to make of the red hair. It's just about unfamiliar enough to me to seem weird. Then again, I'm not familiar with the crossover so that's understandable enough XD.
Once again, fantastic stuff :D
AMKitsune: @Radian: Unfortunately so (to me at least). I see what you mean with the coloured reflection, but on a surface that dark and being reflected from that distance, I'd imagine that the reflected light would be so soft and so diffuse that it would barely be noticeable, let alone project much colour onto the wall. At least that's how I'd imagine it would work in this scene.
Regarding there being more grey-scale wonders, let's hope RedRuin creates many more. The two of you'd make a good team :)
AMKitsune: Absolutely amazing!
There's a bit of 'colour bleed' (if that's the right term for it...) just above her head and window-side shoulder, but besides that, this is spectacular. The colours make the image so much better than it was as a grey-scale one. Even then, it was already pretty damn amazing.
I really hope we'll be seeing many more paintings like this from you in the future.
Dramatic Descriptions
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Saying all this, maybe Kazerad will have her kill someone at some point (on purpose) and not be too effected by it. I wouldn't imagine so though...
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Please bare with me. I'll try to explain why as best I can.
Once again, they way in which you describe the landscape and the people in it is top notch, but I suspect that this chapter may have perhaps been a little 'too wordy'. Honestly, I've been a little unwell lately which has lead to me being somewhat tired which probably isn't doing my ability to focus any favours, but I found it quite hard to concentrate on this chapter and to fully absorb what was going on. Another reason for this may have been because 'not much of actual importance' seemed to be happening for most of the chapter. I'm not trying to say that it was boring or uneventful, but compared to the last chapter which had our protagonists fleeing through a dark forest trying to outrun death, not much seemed to happen in this chapter. To sum up the most notable events that I picked up on, there was the river crossing, the old man with the sword in the village and then meeting the soldiers. I realise that there was also a section at the end where we met this 'not-royalty' guy, but by this point, I was struggling to keep up with the story to the point where additional characters and events weren't really sticking in my mind.
Something else that I noticed which may have possibly been a contributing factor to my finding it harder to concentrate on this was the fact that much of the speech (and a fair few other sentences) weren't capitalised. Your sentences can often run on for quite a while, and while this can be great for adding to the overall feel of the story, it can sometimes 'lessen the point' that's being made. These longer sentences that often feel like they contain more than one subject combines with lack of capitalisation at the beginning of many of the speech sections (which comprise a great deal of the story), while technically making sense, also make the story harder to read in my opinion.
It's most likely my current lack of focus talking, but I feel that this chapter could have perhaps benefited from being written with slightly shorter, more succinct sentences. Something else to bare in mind with this critique is that I'm Dyslexic which means that while I'm lucky enough to be able to read most things as well as anyone else, I can struggle with the flow of text whenever there are grammatical errors or if it's not laid out particularly clearly. For the most part, your writing is very well laid out, but I just want to make it clear that my 'condition' makes it harder for me to understand what other people may have absolutely no problem with. Still, you may find it better to write these chapters in a program that automatically capitalises the first word of each sentence for you.
Finally, I may have had difficulty with this chapter simply because I didn't find many of the events in it particularly gripping. This is unfortunately just my personal opinion and I would have most likely kept that opinion regardless of how the sequences were written. Personally, I'd consider these sections 'filler material', meant to go between the main sections of interest. Going back to what I said earlier, while I understand that most of this chapter was spent travelling, there were a few times where I felt that the story was going to slow down and focus on that area for a bit. Places like the river crossing and settlement with the old man and child in it. Unfortunately, I feel that these sections were skimmed over too quickly and 'not enough time was spent on them'/'not enough of interest happened' to make them stand out from the 'filler' that was the time spent travelling between locations.
Just to make it perfectly clear, I don't want you to be disheartened by what must essential look like a big 'wall of negativity', but as it currently is, I found the chapter hard to engage with and consequentially, hard to get absorbed into. If I were to read this at another time, I may find it easier to follow along with the flow of the longer sentences and less intense story of this chapter, but right now, I'm afraid that I wasn't able to fully enjoy it. I'm currently on the fence as to whether I should post this or not. It feels knowing how critical this all is. I just hope that I was able to accurately pin point the reasons for why I found it hard to engage with.
Of course, I'm by no means an experienced writer myself, so pretty much all that I'm saying is based purely on my own opinions and observations. My suggestions are ones that I believe would make the story easier for me to read personally. I have no idea whether they would be of any benefit to anyone else. I'd certainly hope so, but I couldn't say for sure.
Once again, I hope that these thoughts may be of some benefit to you. My apologies if I rambled on a bit with some points or repeated myself. Being tired can do that XD
Best of luck with your future writing.
(As I am at the moment, I could spend forever rereading this critique and not be fully satisfied with it. For the sake of just getting it out there though, I'm just going to post it as it currently is.)
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Also, Katia's starting to look a little crazy there. Better give her a hug to calm her down a bit. XD
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While places like this tend to be full of relatively like-minded people with a shared interests (In this case, sad cats), You have to accept that different people have different likes and opinions.
We have absolutely no desire to censor people for having differing views and thoughts, but sometimes these views can be worded in ways that serve no purpose other than to make others feel bad about their own opinions (like saying something like "your interest in anthropomorphic animals is weird" or words to that effect. Most hobbies and pastimes are 'weird' when you look at the closely enough). These kinds of comments have no place here (or in any other decent community for that matter).
Personally, I'm not too keep on the whole 'male pregnancy' thing, but this picture's breaking none of the Booru's rules as far as I'm aware, so it has every right to be here. It's just a case of 'putting up' with the images that you don't particularly agree with for the sake of letting others enjoy them.
I realise that you may have strong feeling about some of the content on this Booru, but when commenting on something, above all else, try to consider how your comment will make everyone else feel. While we don't necessarily want this place turning into an echo-chamber with everyone agreeing with everything everyone says, it's important to voice your objections and concerns as considerately as you can.
We've already got a sad cat. There's no need for any sad fans.
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Either way, being as pissed as she is here, surely she'd just try to seduce the shop keeper instead of have any kind of rationally emotional response to the situation?
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Seriously, coming from someone you know would be somewhat ok, but from her perspective, all her fans would simply be random weirdo's. (and let's face it, we're all random weido's in one way or another XD)
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The idea that Lil' Katia has absolutely no idea how normal social interaction works, no sense of self perception and lets her excitement get the better of her. Simply precious.
(kind of reminds my of myself when I was little, except this is actually adorable XD)
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It uses a visual display of affection to encourage unsuspecting onlookers into reciprocating these emotions in the form of a big loving hug.
It's believed that some Khajiit actually draw sustenance from these hugs.
Some Khajiit have been known to survive for weeks at a time without a supply of conventional food, surviving on mere crackers and hugs. How this is achieved is currently unknown, but most leading researchers in this field agree that it's bloody adorable :3"
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Also, those expressions! So sweet!
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It took a good week for the swelling to subside...
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Cider, you've done it again.
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You also did a good job of not letting any characters become the 'favourite' by making them 'too perfect' in any way (a problem that many fanfictions suffer from). I was really pleased (and pleasantly surprised) to see Katia written not as a 'damsel in distress' or the 'all conquering protagonist' but as an actual person as she appears in the comic itself. It may not sound like much, but I think it does so much to help make the story more believable and immersive (which is surely one of the best things a story can be, right?).
Honestly, this felt like a small slice of a much bigger story. Sure there were a couple of typo's here and there and a few sparse grammatical errors, but for the most part, it was fantastically written. the way it's written made it feel like I was reading an excerpt from a larger novel.
To summarise, an overall fantastic piece of writing that I feel was only let down by the lack of time devoted to introducing the individual characters (in a story this short with this many characters, I can see how that may be difficult to pull off though).
(Also, I notice that the link doesn't work any more. Did you take the story down?)
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Katia's a fiery fisted baddass now.
I really shouldn't be surprised, but this picture really emphasises the 'baddass'.
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Going back to Valkaiser's knee comment, I can see where there may be some confusion. Based on Katia's canon proportions, yes, her knee plate thingies sit just above the top of her boots. However, you should also bare in mind that canon Katia has quite stubby little legs that are about the same length as her torso while what you've drawn are closer to what you could call 'anatomically correct' proportions (Strictly speaking, Kazerads placement of Katia's knee guards doesn't make anatomical sense. As far as I can tell at least). Of course, what looks best depends on the style of drawing at the end of the day. Just like how a chiby bobble-headed character (not referring to Katia here) can look good in their own right despite being an anatomical abomination XD
Incase you're interested, I shifted her knee plates up a tad like Valkaiser suggested just to see how it looked.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hqlfha3st1n1pjd/katia%20knee%20edit.png?dl=0
(I also faffed around with the contrast/colours and antialiased it, but that was just out of a force of habit and not meant as criticism)
Again though, beside that, it's all pretty damn good :D (and I'll say again, absolutely adorable)
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http://a-m-kitsune.tumblr.com/post/125973022818/pre-imp-incident-of-course-assuming-they-have
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It's perfect!
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All classic symptoms of Katia withdrawal.
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... In a strictly platonic sense, of course...
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http://a-m-kitsune.tumblr.com/post/131715992899/not-entirely-sure-why-i-even-did-this-its-not
I fully acknowledge that I have a problem and will seek help as soon as a support group for video making prequel fans makes itself available.
And once again Radian, fantastic work as usual :D.
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Not enough 4 leaf clovers. XD
You know what? The shiny sword knocks it up to a 9.
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Still, great stuff XD.
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The sadness is too much!
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There we go, much better XD
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The painting's also bloody brilliant, just in case I hadn't made that clear XD
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@POMA: Ooh, what a conundrum! with every bite, she gets less and less hungry but looses more and more of her dignity! Whatever should she do?
Seriously though, great job on this. The only thing that's missing here is her lighter chest colouration. Besides that though, top notch stuff :D
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Something like that maybe?
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Although, could you imagine getting a bunch of the artists here to simultaneously work on a single picture? I don't know if it would result in something fantastic or end up a complete disaster XD
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Has to be said though, I'm not sure what to make of the red hair. It's just about unfamiliar enough to me to seem weird. Then again, I'm not familiar with the crossover so that's understandable enough XD.
Once again, fantastic stuff :D
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(Hopefully MyUsernamesMud doesn't mind me using his music here)
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Regarding there being more grey-scale wonders, let's hope RedRuin creates many more. The two of you'd make a good team :)
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There's a bit of 'colour bleed' (if that's the right term for it...) just above her head and window-side shoulder, but besides that, this is spectacular. The colours make the image so much better than it was as a grey-scale one. Even then, it was already pretty damn amazing.
I really hope we'll be seeing many more paintings like this from you in the future.